She awoke to the sound of foot traffic, and immediate embarrassment when she realized Cory’s computer was no longer on top of her. She meant to put it away before she fell asleep, but she hadn’t. She turned to apologize to Cory, but there was nothing but a note in his place. “Off to my finals, wish me luck!” It read. She didn’t know she had asked him to sleep on the floor the night before an exam, “I’m so stupid” she cursed herself. She looked up to the ceiling and placed a wrist over her eyes to hide her shame.

With the added sensory deprivation, she heard Virgil chewing in bed next to her. “He left you breakfast” he said pointing to the table with his spork. The weight of the meal was made heavy by the guilt. She popped it open and uttered a whine. Cory had dressed her food into the figure of an angel. The sunny side up yolk made her head, with the egg whites her halo and robes. Strips of hashbrowns made the feathers of her wings. She idled before a dark array of seasoned meats, with the caption written in ketchup, “Be not a fried” Which was a nod to when she told him how much she hated fried foods.

Virgil craned his neck to see. “Lucky you, all I see in my food are my parents fighting” Virgil informed from his scrambled eggs. Judy droned out, “I’m a monster.” Virgil swallowed his last bite, “Heard you listening to Dante, what’d you think? Your earphones died last night; heard the whole thing.” He asked. There were a lot of things she felt, about it, all of them in line with how many people Dante hated, instead she focused on his idol. “You didn’t tell me you were in it. I would’ve asked for an autograph” Judy said. Virgil laughed, “No, no, I’m not that old, but Hell I could’ve been. My dad said to skip the insurance and go find that place.” Judy ate the head of the angel, “What place?” Virgil burped, “Dr. Stone’s complex in the Andals. My grampy was one of the first to go down there when they found it.” Judy stopped eating.

Out of sight of the angel’s glowing eye she was desperate to know what he knew. “It’s real?” Virgil nodded, “Yup. Whole thing is miles underground. Too big to seal off, but too dangerous to keep open” Judy would let the Angel go cold and her words unheard to hear what Virgil knew.

Virgil explained it was a family tradition to keep the memory of the complex alive. He explained even without Dr. Stone, the complex as secluded as it was, would pay dividends if bombs ever started dropping.

According to Virgil, after that Ides of Night episode, Dr. Stone fell off the map for years, until a Hispanic man named Jesús put a story in for the local paper. His English was far from fluent, but his message was damning. He said he revisited a project he once worked on in the Andal mountains. He and others worked to clear brush and install cosmetic landscaping around what he was told was an abandoned mineshaft. When he brought his family up to revisit his work for a picnic, what he returned to was far more than what he remembered.

Framed by the rocks carved within veiled curtains of overgrowth, the gilded mouth of a bunker peered at him, though its façade resembled more of a mausoleum. The find caught public interest, but the media sparked when he came across an abandoned Camaro that bore Dr. Stone’s license plate. The story snowballed as Dr. Stone’s location at last seemed found, though, they couldn't understand what exactly they had found.

Through corroboration with Jesús and open inquiries about the structure, new leads to its origin and purpose arose. People by the hundreds were tasked to its construction, each responsible for a single component of the complex, each blind to the contributions of their fellow tradesmen. Hundreds more were unaccounted for, either deceased or simply untraceable, and thus left a fragmented picture of what they were working on.

Some worked on electrical and other infrastructure, others were artisans and carvers, or mere delivery men, but most, most dug and they dug deep. According to Virgil’s family, survey records showed the site was once a mineshaft abandoned by what was then the turn of the century. Those who reported it described a service elevator that went down hundreds of feet below the surface. An account corroborated by some and conflicted by others.

Records indeed described the mine’s layout, but nowhere near the depth of what was described by the workers. The entrée way opened to a long tunnel left by miners that was later shored up and dolled up by respective contractors, but to them there wasn’t a vertical shaft at all. As accounts grew, it was evident they were all flies caught in a web of lies.

The timeframe showed that the complex was built from the bottom up over several years. It turned out Jesús was one of the last to have seen it as his task was to establish the elaborate garden outside, now overgrown, and feral. As a consequence of time, few were left alive to account for the work done on the lowest levels, as each worker labored above a level unbeknownst to them, routing conduit to areas they hadn’t seen. Regardless, those available described what they could in relative detail.

Many reported they felt afraid to share what they worked on by the sheer lack of explanation they themselves were given. They speculated that it was some kind of shelter, or secret government lab, or a vault meant to preserve artifacts. Others were scared that their work would somehow find them guilty of fraud. What plans could be sourced from their records showed a terrible degree of dishonesty from the engineers, none of which were reachable. None of the workers knew it had anything to do with Dr. Stone, but when they learned he was involved, they were unsurprised.

Jesús could describe trees of bitter fruit planted in the garden with populations of stinging wasps imported. The others told of winding corridors, artisan reliefs, creepy statues, and monstrous pieces of machinery working together for an unknown purpose. Each level was covered in layers of reinforced concrete and meters of stone with no clear path between them. As their patchwork of peculiarities came to light a fire burned hot in the eyes of the public.

Authorities were compelled to inspect the site. The first obstacle they were met with was an intimidating door, both in fortification and inscription. From a distance the entrance appeared to be made of marble, sculpted to reflect a composite of greco-gothic architecture. Closer inspection revealed it was forged steel painted in white enamel. Above it was an inscription across the steel girder wreathed in the sculpture of a medieval ferry. The frame read, “Abandon all homes, you who enter here.” Virgil explained Dr. Stone’s fascination with Dante's Inferno was present at every level of the complex, and the inscriptions he perverted were no mistake.

The door was a lofty beast large enough to fit an Abrams tank. It was sealed shut with a mechanical combination lock. Fifteen digits, two parts, to be rolled across its titanium tumblers. Given those who knew Dr. Stone, they were keen to point out the quote was bastardized from the ‘Inferno’, by Dante Alighieri. They spelt his name, and the door's jaw swung agape. It hissed while it showed a full foot depth of carbonized steel, fit to survive a nuclear blast. The complex mouth was opened, and air stagnant for a generation breathed at them from its black corridor.

Within the first level, Virgil informed her his grandfather was of the first to lead the way. His name was Max, and he warned that the greatest obstacle he faced down there was the lack of light in any measure. There were no switches, no bulbs, or lamps. It all had to be brought with them like they were spelunking a cave. He believed it was Dr. Stone’s intention to avoid locked doors that may be sealed, while also discouraging any nosers from delving too deep.

Headlamps on, agents like Max were racked with questions. The guides they brought chimed in what little information they could offer but were each and all daunted by what waited inside. They were met with a dark tunnel, though as they met the first wall, it appeared to be more like a maze. They stood awestruck within an atrium, void of light, where every wall was covered in writing. They were of different languages, lain out neat and orderly around the petrified mouths of each Junction. The languages were archaic, the characters that made them more closely resembled those of cave paintings.

The sight disturbed the men and was enough to send the meekest of them stumbling out of the complex altogether. Each corridor branched off into more corridors, each carved in the rock with its own tongue. Their confused chatter harmonized with the scried symbols with every bounding echo in those halls. It twisted their words, and maddened the mind, until it was as grating as the static of their radios. None dared venture into the corridors by their lonesome for fear of losing the way back from that winding dark. There was however a clue to be held within the center of the atrium, one that pointed them in the right direction. Though it was more disturbing than anything they could imagine.

It was a petrified tree of sorts, pried from the spine of a chimeric creature with a golden pomegranate in its mouth, a statue, and a guide. The tree lacked leaves; the metallic rigor of its crooked branches was hooked into the ceiling akin to the discharged dendrites of a neuron. Its bark was riddled with worded textures, while its host strained in agony towards one of the openings.

The host unnerved even the most secular among them, but for those who recognized it, they clutched their crucifixes out of fear. It appeared human in the vestigial sense, since its animalistic features eclipsed anything human about it. It presented both male and female parts, scaled wings were drawn from its ribs, its snakelike tail girdled the tree trunk as if to rip it out. Its hind hooves cracked the stone floor beneath it in its efforts to press on, while its front paws pointed as above so below, in the direction of the one path. It crushed the fruit in its goat snout with such force its eyes bulged from the overflow of knowledge, while its spiraled horns slithered from its skull like snakes.

Abufihamat, here had suffered his own fruit of wisdom, but the God fearing among the group, knew him best by another name, the demon, Baphomet. They saw the warning was clear, if this demon was prostrated in his pursuit, then what were they really looking for?

Max was the first to point out a ring of writing around its base, one written in English. "From the roots of our babble, we will pull the fruits of knowledge from this chimera’s tongue." Virgil said at this point his grandfather watched the devoted churchgoers flee to entrance in terror. He followed for no other reason to call more of his caving friends to help.

Their names were Joel, Christopher, and Brian. According to Virgil, by the time his buddies got there, he figured out the petrified tree was a map of the level they were standing in, and it was immense. Within a single square mile there were several linear miles carved into the mountain, thousands of metric tons more carved out than was ever mined away originally. They noticed that each language that surpassed the last was in fact its evolution. As they neared their respective dead ends, they became recognizable and thus readable. It was found each wreath of writing was nothing more than a dictionary for the respective languages. At the branch that neared English, was a conflux of Greek, Latin, and Norse, where a warm presence awaited them, faint and distant.

Its warmth was a welcomed reprieve from the dreary cold of the tunnels and at the end of the cavern was another metal door cast in the same depravity of the tree. The door was hot and radiated its desired heat up towards them. Men were called and shop lights were brought in to inspect the end of this maze.

Upon approach they found the door was just as much a statue as the tree, and was among all things, lascivious. It was a double door that featured a naked man and woman on either side nuzzled head-to-head in poses of post coitus. The way the bronze was fired made the couple appear melancholic, relieved of their sexual tension, though left empty as a result. Like the tree, this statue held an inscription at its base. “Our endeavors began in the heat of passion, though few could be so spiteful to the end. Enter if you please, but knockers first.” At this point, there was a mix of feelings amidst Max and his friends.

Joel and Brian were giddy, this was their own lost arc waiting it to be discovered, while Chris and Max feared they were searching for pandora’s jar. Regardless of what they felt, they volunteered for the job as their duty and so they began poking around to open the door.

The door lacked a handle and didn’t appear to have any locks. What was clear however, was that the door was scalding hot. Wherever they touched it burned them. They considered requesting explosives to remove the door, until Joel had forgone his shame and groped the woman’s breast. Unlike the rest of the door, it was cool to touch.

Once he thumbed the nipple, he felt it was a button. He pressed it as the other men teased him over it. Joel claimed in his defense that it was the woman’s arm over the man’s chest that tipped him off, but regardless, someone was bound to figure it out eventually. Once the button was pressed, the door opened on its own, and forced them into silence.

The party backed away and shielded their faces with their arms as a wave of dry heat stung their eyes. It was like opening a cremator. Words of shock were hoarse in the dry air as the scorching heat scathed their lungs and raptured all moister from their mouths. The still cavern’s cold dew erupted into steam and left them sweltering at the spike in humidity. Joel the hardiest of the bunch braved their eyes against the heat, and with his light in hand he gawked at the visage he saw below.

Their chapped lips gaped at the army of shadowy figures. After the landing, beyond the door, stairs led down to a gallery of monumental endowment. They were statues by the thousands, life-sized and dark with bronze. Great men and women who were written through the ages, were here immortalized in metal. All together drenched in the same caloric heat that now poured from the room.

The heat was almost too intense to enter. A thermometer registered it at just over 130 degrees Fahrenheit, and it was gusting. It blew across this enormous room in a vicious cycle with a force great enough to pry their eyelids apart. It was unfathomable to think of how much rock would have been cleared to make the space, or the sheer power required to generate such a debilitating heat wave. Looking down from where one would descend into it, no one could see an opposing wall. Those who dared enter found they could only do so for a short time before they’d be forced to retreat and what they described unsettled all who heard it.

The statues all glared down the path that wound against the coming wind. They were stacked in legions, poised to break the gale against their brows. They were of all eras donned in the uniforms of their triumph. Where the door to this level was scalding, the statues were untouchable.

A careless hand laid against them would set it searing with blisters. If Dr. Stone hoped to preserve them, he was clever to have them stored in such a hostile environment. Where no man could lay hand upon them, nor afford the effort to have them removed.

That was when Brian at the lead of the party had gotten too greedy with his progress. He strayed far enough to see the path bowed down from atop an incline, but heard, just as the others heard, the door behind them begin to close.

It moved of its own accord, unerring against the fingers of the group who tried to force it open. Most of the men who ventured in slipped through before it shut again, but for Brian who’d ventured the furthest, he was caught behind it. His cries of terror rang through the bronzed couple as thumbs mashed the nipple button and crowbars plunged into the recesses of the door. It wouldn’t open again, and after an hour of screaming, Brian’s panicked words subsided.

Demolitionists were ordered to the scene. There were no hinges, no locks, no identifiable mechanics they could target. Explosives were recommended, though counted against when the integrity of the tunnels came into question. They elected to use industrial tools. Countless hours of sparked grinding and hydraulic pounding piled onto their dread. It became painfully apparent that the door was made of more than just bronze. Copper insulation halted acetylene torches and the alloyed steel beneath dulled their diamond toothed drills. Brian had stopped yelling hours ago, and his friends feared the worst.

The heat of that room could kill a man in minutes and cook him in a matter of hours. After a full day had passed the door was abandoned all together and efforts to get in were focused on the stone that framed it. Then, on the sabbath, at the twenty-four-hour mark since the button had first been pressed, Joel anxiously tried the button again and the door opened once more.

It was the same as before, a burning storm billowed like a blast furnace from the dark, but Brian was absent from the glowing eyes of their headlamps. They expected to find him roasted at the foot of the door, but he was nowhere to be seen. They assumed he fled to find another way out and so they wasted no time to brace the door open.

They piled a mound of rock and rubble between the doors to keep them pried and a rescue team was sent in with Max and the others. They drenched themselves in water and carried ice packs to endure the stovetop conditions as they raced through the gallery.

They feared Brian had run off in panic only to suffer a heatstroke among the statues. They wandered by Romans and Greeks, past Ottomans and Maori, Chinese, Japanese, hoping to find him hidden behind the great faces of the world. They checked behind the legs of Cleopatra and by the feet of Giranomo. He was nowhere near Saigō nor by Jean d’Arc. Julius Caesar leered to help their search, but he was as blind as Nostradamus stood beside him. Fear closed in if the doors would do the same, but yonder, over a ridge, the path dipped down to yet another doorway.

Its mouth was of literal composition, with the teeth and lips carved into the stone of its arch. Stretched agape, it huffed the scalding air in the same tidal sway as one would breathe. They realized Brian could have run for it looking for shelter from the heat.

Unlike the other gates they encountered, this was not barricaded at all. The heat was most intense here, so intense it met the skin more so with pain than warmth. Upon approach the path mulled into the shape of a tongue, and at its turgid arch, past the jowls at the base of its gullet, flapped a massive vent. It appeared to be some sort of pressure release modeled after a trachea, and behind it, running parallel down the pipe was a black chute of a throat.

They all ducked around the vent to peer inside and what hit them to their surprise was cold air. It was frigid, crisp, though tainted with a caustic miasma against their tongues. Chris split from the group to relay back what they found, while Max and Joel stayed to continue their search.

Lights shined below, ever deeper into the delirium of this place. What they saw, damn near 30 feet down, was Brian’s broken flashlight. Its bulb was extinguished, though its glossy body shined against the black matte it lay in. They knew he was down there, but the winding stairs were slick with frost and oily slush. They called his name to no reply and so after roping to one another, together they descended to the third level.

The atmosphere was nauseating, the air was thick, sweet, and filthy. Every breath was a gulp of black soup that earned flushed faces, and a dry retch here and there. The cold dark fell around them in their descent. They thought it a trick of the light, until Max caught a falling flake in his hand and smeared its body between his fingers. It was snowing, but the blackness it carried vexed them all. At the bottom of the stairs, their boots crunched on crystals and soon they found themselves coated in the same black slush that lay all around them.

It didn't take them long to find Brian. He was curled up in a little black ball hidden beneath the rungs of the stair. He wasn't conscious, and he wouldn’t wake. A sternum rub earned a meek groan, but his breathing was weak, and his cheeks were an anoxic blue. Regardless, he was alive, and they were eager to get him out.

They called back up with excitement, but Chris who’d returned, answered in shouted warnings of danger. In their concern to find Brian they neglected to see the inscription around the manhole above. Their minds became hazy, and their heads began to pound. Barring protocol, they rushed Brian out from the caverns where he was med-evacted for his broken leg, heat stroke, and carbon monoxide poisoning leading to acute rhabdomyolysis. In the short time Joel and Max were there, they too had to be hospitalized for the same arial affliction.

They would later learn, the third level acted as a carbon filter. Its design was as sinister as it was genius, a room meant to combine the condensation of moisture with the subsequent sublimation of the snow to concentrate carbon from the air and neutralize it in a solid form. Brian, so desperate to cool himself and rehydrate, had resorted to eating the brackish snow. He ascended and descended the stair several times before he slipped and broke his leg. He could not come up for warmth and was forced to ball up to shelter himself from the falling soot.

The danger of the complex was now ever apparent. Granted, had they taken the time to read the inscription, they would've found it said "In our follies so dubious we devour ourselves. Retain we breathe to live; we do not live to breathe." The inscription was a warning, and so all other inscriptions would be treated as such.

It was clear by then, that to delve deeper into this place required more serious precautions. The gallery alone would have been large enough for any prepping doomsayer to call home but by the gauge of the heat jettisoned within it, and the expanse of the carbon trap; they knew something greater lay beneath, something for the life of them, they could not understand. Those charged for surveying the site admonished the contractors for their lack of insight, but they were in the dark with everyone else.

As stricter preparations were made to venture deeper, measures were made to take control of whatever systems were installed. They expected mountains of circuitry to comb through but instead were met with nothing in terms of digital components. Everything they encountered was mechanical in nature, or of such analogous scale, they had little to no means to take control.

The doors to the second level, relied on mechanical advantages of geared components to open them despite their weight. Even the timer for the door to the gallery was an autonomous system of weights and levers, and its only input of energy was that of the heat generated by whatever ungodly source fumed it. They hoped to find a means of turning off the heat vent, and considered sealing it off completely, but contractors corroborated that there were nuclear power sources they delivered, and feared any tampering could cause a meltdown. They were left with no other option but to work within the confines of the complex if they wanted to go deeper.

Brian’s caving days were over, he was lucky to walk away with his life. As for the others, they swore on his behalf to see the exploration through. Once discharged, they returned with greater caution.

They found the gallery door was disabled and fitted with a double doored staging area. A gas siphon attempted to remove the ambient carbon from the trap, though the team would carry air tanks just in case. They braved the heat under the spectral gaze of shop lights. They walked into man's mouth and descended once again down the staircase slimy with soot. Despite their efforts to pump out the gas, oxygen levels were far from nominal.

At last, they had a chance to survey the space. The size of the room was difficult to discern on account of the all-consuming blackness that devoured it. The dark snow coated everything, but what they could see, was how lucky Brian was to be alive. Where the stairs met the bottom was in fact the top of a subterranean ridge.

Any deviation from the path would've sent him sailing down an icy slope for him to suffocate or drown in the dark crevasse. A lone railing waist high marked the path, arisen against the snow composed as a chained linkage of arms where each held another. The team was roped up for safety and found to their relief the floor beside the helping hands was grated for the snow to slip through and gave grip beneath their boots.

Stood upon it, there was an undeniable tremor to be felt. With their hands clasped upon the rail, it rang through the metal wrists deep and rhythmic like the pulse of a slumbering hound.

The path wove across the ridge alongside three girthy pipes. Their banded bodies glistened through the dark mire like the meat of worms unearthed by rain, where from the depths their throats hummed to the tenor of the same panting beast. They thrice feasted on the black air, on the snow, and the cold itself through the grated radula of their spoked mouths. Alas, as their growls grew deeper with the drumming through their feet, Max and his friends met the wound in the rock wall where these worms pried themselves from. Before them, another door stood, one more threatening than the last.

In the gaze of their flashlights, a great eye glared back. It was enormous, taller than Max, the tallest man of the party. It peered down at them glazed in ice and ire, bound in eyelids that spelt the words "Beware the eye of avarice, it sees all but itself.” The team sent word back of the find as they looked for a way to open it. The eye watched unblinking in their struggle but they were certain the tremor came from beyond it. They pondered if it was a door at all, when Joel leaned against it to gauge his height, and the ice around it gave way.

The eye jostled back, it was quite easy to move it turned out. Upon the ball's return its black tears were shaken from its sphere to the sound of shattered glass. Together they pushed the eye back again, and as it rolled up in ecstasy they were met with a breath of temperate air and the entrance to the fourth level.

The eye not only acted as a door, but as a check valve to maintain the positive air pressure within. It rolled back on a simple rail propped up at an acute incline; its round shape allowed it to roll with ease and once released, it would roll back of its own accord and reestablish the seal. Aside from the ball's weight, there was no locking mechanism to speak of, but when they saw what the room had to offer, they considered sealing it off themselves.

They were covered in drippings of black soot, everything they touched sullied the precious metals that plated the room. Where in the third level their lights struggled to carve a line of sight through the dark, the floor they stood upon here gleamed with electrum, yellow as greed. The shine was blinding, and the knocking tremor felt outside the door was now concussive.

Beyond the landing they stood bisected by the eye's ramp, stairs plunged them further into the now deafening dark. The air, while breathable, was thunder clad. Each bang struck the ears like a gunshot. Perilous wonder returned to the party at what could be down further, as they were more than 1000 feet underground now.

Their instruments told the air of the room was clean, but electrical interference shot their comms. Joel was the first to remove his helmet to test the air and reported the sting of static as his hair stood on end. The most damning discovery, however, were footprints that were not their own.

There were several of them running up and down the stairs, most with the same shoesize. Excitement got the better of them, Chis called down to the dark, but all that answered was the thunder around them and umbral beating beneath. They were sure most if not all the footprints belonged to Dr. Stone. The soot they were crusted in were the very shadow of his presence, and so they followed them with trembling breaths.

They tracked the steps down, while their lights distracted them with more shining reliefs in the walls. Etches of machine blueprints were described of manmade wonders that would shape the world for what was. The wheel, the steam engine, radio, chemical equations for gunpowder, farming equipment, clocks, it was all there. It was a shining testament to technology and the grip it gave man over nature and the world. All the machinations enslaved to man's greed were immortalized in the metalwork. Eyes of the search shined to the same metal hue, but then the blur of momentum grazed the light punctuated by the now explosive booming.

The stairwell blossomed out into an atrium of metal framework, copper wiring and voltaic conduction. As they reeled from the speeding blur, another took its place on the same track, then another and another. The electrified air grazed their faces as they passed, and as they followed them with their lights, they saw the room for the machine it was.

It defied belief. What went whirling past them were gigantic metal balls, matched in size with the great eye at the room's entrance. They barreled down a spiraling rail wound in copper wiring at frightening speed. It resembled a rollercoaster; their centripetal force kept them bound to the track which spanned the entire circumference of the room more than an acre in diameter. The room itself was made into the rough shape of a torus which the track funneled through top to bottom. At the room's center, there was an escalator that retrieved the balls from a reservoir they landed in beneath the machine's base. They could see this is where the banging came from, it was the ratchet that drove the balls back up to the pinnacle to descend from. As they looked closer, they squirmed at the details of the mechanism.

The forks that carried the boulders as well as the anchors for the rails were made in the shapes of men and women, respectively. Their metal faces were caste in expressions of discomfort as they were forced to bear the weight by the strength of chest and back. Among them at the center of the spiral below stood a figure with a hand raised. It stood too still to be a real person, and yet, they found the footprints followed the spiral to it.

They did their best not to flinch as the balls bounded by. The back draft they drew dragged on their equipment and crackled with static. They noticed every time a ball passed by, their lights would flare with life. Max tested this by reaching his light near to one of the balls as it passed, and to his horror, it was ripped from the lanyard around his wrist.

The ball had stolen the light. Tethered it to its side with magnetic tentacles it strobed with every revolution. As the ball traveled, the light blared far brighter than it was meant to, until the bulb burst, and its chassis melted down. The balls, ferrous in composition, were shown to possess colossal strength in magnetism. It was in that moment they knew what they were standing in.

This cyclone of racing metal was an electrical turbine. One of such gargantuan scale, they could walk within it. They knew not what it drove, but what was certain was this circle served its greed for electricity. What’s worse was that the magnetic field generated fried the circuitry of their instruments and grew stronger as they neared the center.

Chris realized what they perceived as a draft against their equipment, was a magnetic draw that now threatened to pull them into the tracks. A belt buckle or a utility knife was enough to yank them off their feet. Car keys were torn from belt loops, earrings cleaved through ear lobes, it was like an MRI machine flying past them. They were still tethered together by their carabiners, and each had metal tanks of compressed air on their backs. If one man was pulled away, it threatened to crush them all.

In desperation they hit the deck and ditched all the metal that was magnetic save for their flashlights. Lighters exploded against the shining hulls; rope tangled in steel cable was reduced to tatters. Chris drew a knife, and rather than let his friends unfasten their harnesses, he cut them free. He sliced through the last piece of webbing before the blade itself was taken from his hand.

Everything sucked to the balls was crushed thin as paper, melted down and vaporized in a shower of sparks. Max thanked God that their tanks were aluminum, but any steel fitting still on them threatened to rip through their bodies. Their pace became a crawl, relying on each other's weight to overcome the purchase power of the balls.

They lay prone as though they were squeezing through a rocky crevice. They met the center despite the threat of being crushed, and saw the figure was none other than Nikola Tesla. His statue stood as the father to the creation around him, proud as a saint. In his left hand he cradled his wife to his heart while his right hand raised a palm to declare his enlightenment. They surrounded the inventor, leery of the escalator and the crushing magnetism it carried. Like the other doors before it, this one had an inscription as well, but the door was nowhere to be seen.

The only visible openings were the escalator behind Nikola, and the pinwheel gate the balls cycled through at the end of the ramp. The inscription surrounded the base of the inventor and was as cryptic as the last, "Envy, Pride, Greed, the trinity of contempt. Share the spark with the beloved, and the meek will prevail." The escalator had but an inch of clearance between the balls and the rim, and an investigation of the pinwheel gate showed it led to the loading bank of the escalator. Without knowing where the door was, progress was halted by their confusion and by interference from above.

While the three setup a basecamp below, newfound opposition to the operation stormed above. When the public learned this was where Dr. Stone had fled, federal authorities sought to intervene, while political and corporate interests lobbied to halt the operation all together. There were obvious safety concerns, but more than that, the government was leery about the ‘weapon’ Dr. Stone threatened them with.

The level of investment that went into the complex, worried them that what was down there was a danger to human life as they knew it. They reasoned the pioneer of all their modern medicine, would have an exceptional ability to destroy those dependent on it. They believed somewhere in the complex there truly was a weapon, a real one, and it was their responsibility to exhume it in the name of national security. Many of the public challenged this, since all the weapons Dr. Stone previously described truly were medicines, and that this shouldn’t be treated any differently. Virgil elaborated that those in the right, argued that any medicines to be found would be withheld from them if feds got involved; given that was what Dr. Stone warned of to begin with. While the entities above wrestled over who would claim their heavenly mandate, the animals they represented sparred in their own speculation.

Conspiracy theorists suggested the weapon was in reality a medicine meant to destroy the one thing Dr. Stone hated. They believed he invented a cure-all, one that would threaten corporate interests and unravel any power politicians lobbied for. The idea stirred up bipartisan support across the country on the grounds that they wouldn't need doctors, they wouldn't need insurance, and they could be free of their destitute circumstances. Judy saw a tear come to Virgil’s eye at the thought, but given their current conditions, things didn’t work out that way.

Mobs formed on the routes to the complex, and their theories grew wilder. Due to the similarities to the complex and Dante's inferno, many of the religious community believed Dr. Stone had communed with the Devil to conjure up his treatments. Others from secular systems, felt threatened that what was down there was designed to subvert the powers that be regardless. Either way, his medicines were treated as weapons against all faiths, and the complex may as well have dug into Hell itself. Virgil shook his head in disappointment, for true as it that may have been, these groups advocated to abolish all his treatments out of fear for divine retribution, from whatever they feared as Gods.

Tensions flared, snuffing out any sense of transparency behind a smokescreen of opportunistic activism. It became a crisis to be mined, where the prize was the hearts and minds of the people. One where great speakers could stomp out one another, to rise above and declare their opposition as heretical. This would go on until Dr. Stone’s blackened image became a reflection of their own petty hatred.

Dr. Stone was missing for over ten years, yet in his absence he managed to cause hysteria across the globe. People attempted to break into the area with hopes of delving the complex themselves. Until it was explored, anything could be down there. All their fears, their hopes, and their disappointment. Down below, Max and his friends were feeling the heat over them and feared their chance of uncovering what lay below was fleeting.

While the pretender Gods worked to quell the people's fear, a week had passed, and they were still stuck on the fourth gate. It wasn't until a bout of child's play, that the key was uncovered. As Max and Chris debated the parallels between the complex and the Divine Comedy, Joel discovered he could gather a significant static charge if he brushed his arm along the electrum while the balls rushed by. This resulted in a lark of horseplay as the man-child spent his time zapping his friends. They did not find it as amusing as he did, and after a brief beating, he was left only Tesla to shock. It was meant to be a childish joke, but when he zapped the beak of his wife, the great inventor began to rise.

The air was electrified between the three, their excited shouts echoed with the tolling boulders. Quasi authorities from outside were alerted of their discovery. They would see Tesla now raised over the three. He stood atop a faraday cage that appeared to be a cylindrical elevator. Within it was space enough for one person and a copper lever. Before they could discuss how they should approach it, Joel volunteered himself. He jumped into the elevator as both Max and Chris begged him to stop.

Unlike Joel, they finished reading Dante's Inferno, and they knew whatever the fifth level would bring would be reminiscent of the river Styx with all the violence and depression that flowed with it. They hoped Joel would take Dante’s warning, but after all the time they’d been there, he was the one who uncovered the door, why shouldn't he be the first to descend? He grabbed the lever and cranked it.

The moment the gear was engaged, Joel’s body went rigid. Chris and Max asked what he was doing, but he couldn't answer, he was being electrocuted. Joel couldn't speak, his fingers became locked around the lever, and the elevator began to descend. Max made a grab to pull him free, but the charge locked him up as well. Chris luckily was strong enough to pull Max off to save him from getting his arms cut off, but Joel was left stuck to the lever as the elevator pulled him beneath the floor.

Chris and Max screamed after Joel but there was nothing they could do. The authorities who saw the whole thing, ordered tools to be brought out to remove the statue. Such cruel irony befell the Tesla statue, as the government sought to tear him away from his machinery once more. Ferrous tools weren't an option, but ropes and lumber were.

A bowline was wrapped around Nikola's neck, and he was pried from his perch. Once toppled, the hole was revealed with a sharp hiss. The elevator shaft was revealed and invited an alien humidity into the room, rich and refreshing though viscous in the lungs. Lights and voices shouted down the cables of the elevator after him. The lights dimmed with the depth, as did their calls. To their relief, Joel was able to call back.

His frightened face, so poor of luminance was no larger than the portrait of a stamp at his depth. His compliance showed he no longer suffered the voltage of the elevator, as further evident by his position. The elevator appeared to have dumped him on some shimmering shore bisected by a dock. Max told him to stay put, and to also share his surroundings to calm him down.

He described the shore as metal gravel, ball bearings the size of bullets, and the water to be a viscous fjord extending farther than his light would reach. It was red, and transparent, though his voice trembled as he described faces bubbling in the water beneath him and hissing on every wall. From above, the surveyor's lights shined like stars in the pool’s reflection, and saw it churned beyond their sight through a narrow channel. Joel, tempted by hope, was seen shuffling about the beach looking for a way up; when the bearings became disturbed by his weight and cascaded into the water. He shouted back that he could feel motion beneath his feet and heard mechanisms crank in the walls.

Then, ushered by the tenor of a concussive thunderclap, Joel shouted in pain. His light went wild in his screaming, as it was beaten down by the sound of gunshots. There was no powder flash, but the concussive volleys echoed off the walls clear enough to punctuate their velocity. Chris called for belaying equipment while Max urged him to take cover in the water, but the erythian mirror it once was, became shattered glass in the salvo.

He tried in vain to hide beneath the oily surface, but the volleys were relentless. He was injured, panicked and blind in the spiteful faces of the crossfire. His light had gone out, and while he dove below to hide, his terrified lungs forced him to come up for air where he was shot one final time. He submerged, and just as soon as his final breath bubbled from below, the shooting stopped. His friends who watched were left in stunned silence.

A fatality, the final straw. Between the hysteria on the surface and the tragedy down below, the pressure broke the operation. News of the incident was stifled, and the complex was deemed too dangerous to explore. Federal officials took control as the government looked for a red herring to throw off the masses.

Despite the government's own interest, they learned through advanced seismographs the bottom was at least a full mile deeper from where Joel perished. They thought of digging a separate shaft entirely to bisect it, but thoughts of disturbing the machinery could have ramifications they could not control. In the end, it was easier to seal off the complex all together. The surface of the site would remain occupied by military personnel, until routes to the complex were destroyed and its known entrance was clogged with concrete.

Judy saw Virgil grow emotional as he finished the tale. Chris and his grandfather were pulled out along with all their equipment and were sworn to secrecy. Authority was preserved by way of Godey pretenders and as time passed, the masses took their Malice elsewhere. The fallout of the whole ordeal would carry ramifications that could not bear repeating, and thus the whole event was gently expunged from memory.