VIII #5
The only thing that spoiled his idyll on the slopes of Sljeme was a powerful flash and a fiery tornado that in an instant reduced his carefully planned mansion to a heap of blackened rubble, while the plans for completing the shelter's construction, exposed to incredible heat,
turned to ash and scattered inside the safe that still, though deformed by the temperature, firmly guarded its secrets in the darkness of radioactive ash.
In the room the generators hummed, the pumps droned, and the murmur of water could be clearly heard through the massive pipes that led to or from the large tanks.
The machines were oblivious to the three friends who still watched the large room, impressed.
Nick stopped his gaze in the depths of the room on the large red doors.
"What are we waiting for, let's go see." He broke away from the railing and headed toward the nearest ladder that led to the floor, some three meters below him.
Moments later, the trio stood in front of the metal doors. Tomi studied with interest the chains that hung freely in front of them.
"These chains don't make sense." He grabbed one massive link.
Nick joined him and followed with his eyes the massive chains that hung on something that looked like a rail above their heads, within several very massive steel pulleys.
Almost as if they were meant for transport.
Nick grabbed one chain, ignored the preservation grease, and pulled hard.
He was right. The chain did indeed hang on lodged wheels that used rails for conveyance.
Nick followed with his eyes the rails that ran their way to the small factory on the right side.
"This is for transporting cargo," he finally stated. "Look, both rails end there in that room."
Nick pulled the chain, which moved without a jolt along the well-greased and preserved rail toward the small offshoot within the room filled with various machines. Tomi followed him and, as they passed by the machines, identified each of them.
"This is a lathe, next to it is a milling machine, over there is an industrial drill, then a grinder…" he listed.
"Tomi…" Nick stopped with the chain in his hands, which finally stilled. "Is there anything you don't know or aren't aware of the existence of?"
"What do you mean?" Tomi was confused.
"Well, every one of these machines is familiar to you, I don't have a clue about them, let alone what they're called."
"Ah, a lot of time on the internet, you learn all sorts of things," Tomi replied pragmatically.
"You manage to surprise me every time." Nick shook his head, giving up.
"Anyway, something's missing here, Nick," Tomi stated, looking now at the machines, now at the rails and the chain Nick was still pulling.
"What do you mean? Some machine you've heard of or whatever?" Nick replied, looking around.
"There's no metal." Tomi stopped by the nearest machine.
"Okay, now I don't get you at all." Nick gave up.
Tomi looked at him as if he'd gone mad. Then he said irritatedly: "So many metalworking machines, and no metal anywhere. What's all this for?"
Nick finally understood what Tomi was getting at. He looked at the chain he still held in his hand and followed the rails with his eyes to the closed doors.
"I don't know, Tomi, the answer is maybe behind that gate." He let go of the chain, which clanged as it struck the nearest machine, and headed toward Erik, who still stood by the metal doors, awaiting their return.
The huge metal doors were lodged into a massive steel construction dug into the heavy rock, reinforced with concrete.
Nick approached the doors, put his hands on the cold metal, and literally felt the weight of the construction.
He wondered how to open it. He ran his fingers along the seam in the middle of the construction and then over the metal on the left and right.
He had no idea how to make that enormous construction open.
He couldn't even grasp how it all worked.
Nowhere did he see hinges, nor could he comprehend metal that would hold such tonnage without warping.
Finally, he spotted a channel cut into the floor half a meter wide that stretched five meters in length.
It was on each side of the construction.
And then he understood. The doors would open by sliding to the side.
Then at the top he noticed massive steel arms lodged on each side, which he'd earlier mistaken for some ornament.
Those same enormous pieces of metal ended on both sides in massive boxes that Nick assumed were the motors that drove the whole construction.
On the underside of the arm were cut massive teeth some fifteen centimeters long, ending in a dark opening on the side of the motor.
Nick assumed a gear was inside, probably part of the motor and serving the purpose of opening the door's panel.
"Sliding doors," he stated shortly, pointing at the motors.
"Looks jammed." Erik approached beneath one of the motors and felt the cold metal.
"Not jammed, just deadened," Tomi cut in. "We need to find the controls."
"What do you mean?" Nick asked.
Tomi didn't answer, but went off to the side toward one of the small yellow columns with a box on top, of the kind Nick had already seen around the machine room.
For a moment Tomi fiddled with something around the box, then lightly flicked his hand and the box opened before him.
Nick approached and saw that inside the box was a small screen and a thick, nonstandard keyboard.
He was terribly fascinated by what he saw and quickly called Erik.
"Erik, look at this."
Erik came closer, and they watched, fascinated, as Tomi typed something on the keyboard while lines of commands appeared on the screen. Tomi commented, more to himself than to his friends.
Ha, just as I assumed, the system is connected and the commands are all already entered. Now I just have to find the right line with the appropriate command and…
He pressed a few keys, and the machine room filled with the loud drone of motors and the screech of metal on metal.
After the silence, the sound was deafening, and the trio put their hands over their ears in a futile attempt to at least soften the sound of the heavy screeching that froze the blood in their veins.
The gap in the middle of the doors grew wider as the panels opened, and around the trio a cloud of stone dust spread.
Drawn by the noise, the people who until then had been working around the room came up to the doors, and soon in front of them stood a silent crowd staring into the darkness the massive steel doors had until then hidden.
Minutes later, the massive motors fell silent and silence descended over the platform in front of the quiet group of people.
Before them was a landing that descended in a gentle slope into utter darkness; visibility wasn't great.
You could see the slope ended at gray rock five meters ahead of them, and that was literally it.
Neither rock nor passage, just darkness that for all they knew could hide even monsters from their imagination just outside the circle of light from the now-open space that the massive doors had hidden for decades.
For a few minutes they peered into the darkness before them, expecting something.
Lights, maybe? But the lights didn't come on, and the people, talking quietly, began to disperse.
Nick still stood indecisively in front of the great dark void when suddenly, with a loud click, until-then-invisible floodlights came on in front of him.
He turned and noticed Tomi by the box with the screen, looked at him, and said:
"It's all connected, you just have to switch it on."
Nick shook his head in disbelief, but then, muttering something into his beard, joined Erik, who was already stepping out of the safety of the shelter into the now-clearly-lit space before him.
An incredible sight opened up before Nick.
His eyes wandered around while his brain tried to grasp what he was actually looking at.
What impressed him most was the depth and height of the space.
In these few days he'd gotten used either to the gray of concrete or rock around and above his head, but here there was none of that.
Nick lifted his gaze and noticed he couldn't see the stone ceiling above him.
Everything vanished into darkness, giving the impression that there simply was no ceiling.
Never mind the missing ceiling — if he'd been impressed by the caves and space he'd seen so far, that was now irrelevant.
As far as he could tell, the stone walls, from where he now stood, were hundreds of meters away and didn't narrow; instead they literally widened.
Massive stalactites and stalagmites, the size of a small building, vanished into the darkness, connecting with the invisible ceiling somewhere far above their heads.
Brown and limestone white prevailed, combined with the gray of the rock.
Between the massive columns of stalagmites, which had probably grown in the cave over millennia since the time when dinosaurs probably ruled the world, human creations had settled.
On the left side Nick noticed massive, thick crane hoists and several large concrete buildings lit by the clear light of floodlights.
The buildings were connected by metal structures and stairs, in places completely ruined by rust and water, and didn't seem safe.
He also noticed something that looked like a conveyor belt connecting several buildings and obviously serving some kind of transport.
Several wide entrance doors were, by all appearances, sealed, because clear yellow plastic tapes could be seen pasted around the doors.
On the right side, meanwhile, the light illuminated neatly stacked mountains of metal bars of various dimensions.
From pipes, metal columns, to square beams of all sizes, it was all neatly stacked in straight rows, leaving a wide enough avenue for trucks to move.
And all of it stretched hundreds of meters ahead of them, where in the distance Nick could make out a steel wire fence with the familiar security booth and a high-raised barrier in front of an ancient TAM truck that still had its metal cargo on the tipper.
"Incredible," burst from his mouth. "This is literally incredible."