Robbie Forgotten

11

Robbie could not see, hear, or do anything as he plunged into the earth, shuttled at an alarming speed down the treacherous chute. Everything streaked by black and blue around him and his ears were filled with the deafening rush of displaced air from his rapid descent. Even as he sensed the chute curving this way and that his momentum kept him going like a pinball in an arcade. He was helpless to stop it, twisting and turning, hurtling through the pipe until it all came to an abrupt end and he was spat out into open air. Robbie tumbled clear of the chute into a free fall and then—

WHUMPF!

Something unexpectedly big and soft caught him, skidding a few feet across the floor with the force of his landing. It took some time for Robbie's stomach to drop out of his throat and his heart to slow from an out of control jackhammer to merely a racing percussion. Only when his body had caught up with the rest of his senses that he was grounded again was he able to open his eyes and comprehend what it was he'd landed on.

A big furry recliner?

"What...?" the question crept out under Robbie's breath. What... just happened?

For a moment Robbie sat paralyzed, not daring to move from his seat. Surely someone had heard his rather inelegant arrival. The metal chute was only now just ceasing its resonating echo. It made his ears ring as he strained to listen, but there was nothing to hear. He was left in a suffocating silence.

There were just a few dim reserve lights on high overhead in the crossbeams that made up the ceiling, casting only the gloomiest illumination. All around Robbie were dark and looming shadows that could be hiding anything. He struggled up out of the recliner and groped around with mounting panic as he gathered that he had fallen into a very deep, very big place.

"Hello?" he tried calling, both wanting and not wanting anyone to answer him. But he was very much alone, and his voice was swallowed up in the cavernous chamber.

Everything was so cold, he wrapped his arms around himself in response to the chill. The floor was hard like concrete under his shoes and every step he took caused a sharp echo to bounce off all the metal. Immediately in front of him was some sort of large platform, an intimidating centerpiece amidst all the vaguely threatening shapes encroaching on every side. Robbie clambered up the steps and across the grating to find what had to be some kind of control panel taking up most of the floor space on the catwalk. Maybe he could turn on a few more lights this way?

There didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to how the buttons, dials, and knobs were arranged. It looked like even an electric keyboard had been riveted directly onto the console. Robbie threw caution to the wind and tried to get anything to happen, punching keys and flipping switches indiscriminately. His efforts were rewarded by the thrumming of generators kicking on and the clicking and blinking of more lights sputtering to life and casting the large space in even more daunting relief.

He wished it was dark again.

To call it an underground house would be generous. It made no sense, but there were full length windows along one of the far walls, looking more like terrible glaring faces with their warped frames and streaked over panes. There was nothing good to see through them either but the vague and discomforting emptiness of the surrounding cave in which the bunker was housed.

Besides the recliner, which Robbie now could see was an off-putting shade of orange, there was little else in the place that offered anything in the way of color or comfort. All surfaces were concrete and steel in hard metallic shades. There were no plants, no pictures on the walls. Heaps and piles of scrap metal lay everywhere, especially around a long workbench and the large table on which were scattered a variety of mallets, saws, and soldering equipment. It was a scene of destruction and invention, but the nature of those inventions could not be very good if the rest of the environment was anything to go by...