Isaac, Reed, Demetrius, and Oksana joined Dan on the highest floor. Along the way up, just as expected, they came across more bedrooms, more offices, and more storage rooms, all of them emptied and rusted away by the ages. Dan waited for them at the top of the stairs to the final floor, his staff now holstered across his back. He gestured with his head to the wall next to him.
“This is where our skeleton friends have been slumbering.”
Dozens of pods had been built into the walls of the highest floor. They were the perfect size to fit a man - or his skeleton. All the pod doors were now open, and would remain open, for their previous occupants now laid in pieces across the first floor.
“These poor bastards had to stand upright in these pods for centuries?” Reed questioned. “They really were slaves.”
"At least they were asleep," Dan supposed. He slid a hand down an opened glass door. "Centuries of hibernation. I hope it was at least peaceful."
Wires stretched out of the pods, running along the walls, all heading toward a central spot. As they followed the trail, Isaac found that this floor lacked the same number of rooms as the lower floors. All the top floor had were the rows of pods lining the walls that eventually led to a singular metal door in the wall. At first glance, the door appeared to be locked tight, but it also featured the bald eagle symbol that the group earlier found at the entrance to the facility.
Reed whistled. Right next to the door was the largest pod, the one that must’ve belonged to Currahee.
“This must be the headquarters of the place,” Dan supposed, eyeing the metal door. He gazed around at the pods. “The man in charge kept himself surrounded by bodyguards, seems like. Based on the lack of food and all those bodies down below, I have to wonder…”
He let the thought trail off. Isaac nodded along since he suspected something similar - that when the facility ran out of food, the person in charge of the facility had the skeleton soldiers murder the facility’s occupants.
But why couldn’t they leave and get more food? Or just leave in general? Furthermore, were they even "skeleton" soldiers back then, or just normal soldiers? Well, normal cultivators...but this also would've been before the Unleashing that started cultivation...
Only one way to find those answers. Isaac stepped up to the door, and with a deep breath, placed his palm on the bald eagle symbol. Just as before, there was no deeper password - cultivation itself provided the key to the lock. Gears, idle for centuries, groaned to life as pistons pounded and the metal door slid over to the left, revealing the room inside. Isaac tentatively stepped inside and found the light switch on the wall.
The lights revealed a splendid, marvelous room. The walls were a rich mahogany or some other rich-sounding wood, while a long gray carpet covered the floor. There was a couch, a couple of side tables, and a row of cabinets along the wall. Framed paintings hung from the walls as well, depicting unknown landscapes of rolling hills and snow-capped mountains. The big desk that dominated the back of the room was made of equally rich wood. It would’ve been a grand room to hold meetings in, to have an office in. The only odd thing out was the man who killed himself while sitting at the desk.
He was just a skeleton now, but the signs of suicide were obvious. The top half of the man, dressed in a business suit, lay sprawled over the desk. A bullet had blown through his skull; Reed found the impact point in the wall where the bullet came to a stop. At the end of his outstretched arm, knocked away by the recoil, Isaac found a rusted pistol. He held it gingerly in his hands, fascinated by the fact that this thing was over five hundred years old.
It was a compact gun, the handle an aged brown, the rest of the metal now tinged red with rust. When he examined it closer, he found small etchings in the side. Some of the carvings had been washed away by time; others showed manufacturer numbers; and one appeared to be a decorative symbol. He displayed it to the group.
“Any of you recognize this symbol?”
They all glanced at Reed, their self-proclaimed pre-Unleashing expert. She examined it closely.
“Looks like twin lightning bolts,” she observed. Then she shrugged. “No idea. Perhaps the body will help.”
Isaac studied the sprawled body and found the corner of a stack of papers hidden beneath the torso. He lightly lifted the body while extracting the pile. The first paper, slightly yellowed now, was a letter of congratulations marked with the official bald eagle seal of the Department of Domestic Security.
“To my dearest Kamerad, Colonel Eberhardt,” Isaac read aloud. He glanced down at the corpse, which now had a name. “My sincerest congratulations. Of the Population Exchange districts, your Third District, Northeast Region is the first to hit the target of 26 million. Your hard work and dedication to the cause is most noble and honorable.”
“Congrats, Eberhardt,” Reed said, slapping the skeleton across the back. A bony echo drifted through the quiet room as Isaac continued reading.
“Once the 26 number has a comfortable cushion on top of it, start dispersing any excess populations to the other regions. The western stations are lagging behind our timetable, so we will need your help with catching them up to speed. Please also send ten thousand to the Nevada facility. A cover story of quarantine should suffice. Our experiments are nearing success, but we are running low on bodies.”
The five cadets gave each other suspicious glances upon hearing that.
“We are nearing the end, Kamerad. Now is not the time for any mistakes. With a population of 26 million, it’s highly likely enemy agents have infiltrated your region. The Department of Domestic Security has its own army and police force for a reason - don’t hesitate to imprison anyone deemed subversive to our goals. But make sure your jails and work camps keep these people alive - this is not 1942. If any district has just a single living body below the 26 number, then all of our work will be for nothing.”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
Isaac read the final paragraph. “We have toiled for decades. I know we are all tired. But just a little further. I know we can do it, Kamerad. We will achieve peace for all time and-”
Isaac caught himself, then read the last part over again.
“And Restore Man to the Garden. Yours truly, Secretary Kohler.”
Reed stopped having fun with Eberhardt, instead now studying him with a serious stare. “...just what were you and your friends up to?”
Isaac paused to reflect. Somehow, in some way, the Department of Domestic Security is related to Project Patmos. He narrowed his eyes. The Unleashing allegedly caused cultivation, but this facility and those soldiers from before the Unleashing could still use it. Cultivator slaves, population exchanges, the Garden of Eden…just what the hell is going on?
“1942 must be a year,” Isaac deduced. “And the current year is 2501. That means whatever happened in 1942 was…”
He started counting on his fingers, but by the time he reached his thumb, he realized this would take a while.
“About five hundred years ago,” Reed concluded for him. “Some time before the Unleashing, but not too far off.”
“This Nevada facility and Kohler,” Dan added. “They were mentioned by the skeleton soldiers. Perhaps Nevada, whatever it may be, was this Department’s headquarters, and Kohler was its leader?”
The group nodded at that. Faced with more questions than answers, Isaac turned to the rest of the pages, which consisted of a few scattered journal pages written by Eberhardt. His scrawl moved erratically and often devolved into gibberish.
“Something has gone wrong,” Isaac read aloud. “Terribly wrong. Yesterday was the day we were supposed to restore man to the Garden, but I still exist in this mortal coil. Communications across the country are down. Reports are slowly trickling in - if they are to be believed, then the Central Region has been utterly destroyed. That would’ve wiped the government out wholesale. The Nevada facility has gone silent. I haven't heard from Kohler. The workers in my own facility demand answers. What am I supposed to do, tell them we failed? There are over 26 million people within my district alone. We have no long-term food and resources for them. There would be no need for food in the Garden! What am I supposed to do? Do I have an obligation to save these people? I just don’t know.”
Another entry.
“I’ve hesitated. I’ve hesitated and things are spiraling out of control. Millions are starving on the surface. Is their blood on my hands? There are nearly a billion people in this country with nowhere near enough resources for all of them. Fighting has already broken out between the Northwest and Southwest regions. I haven't heard from the Northeast Main Station. Am I now the authority figure in the Northeast? Do I activate the weapons at Monashac? I don’t know. I don’t care. We’re all safe down here. Safe, safe, safe. Some of my workers want to leave the facility. Are they insane?”
The last entry.
“Food is low. Northwest, Southwest, and Southeast Regions have activated their atomic arsenals. If reports are to be believed, so have the Soviets and the Chinese. That’s why I’ve locked all exits to the facility- it’s too dangerous out there. Why don’t my workers understand? I know they’re conspiring against me. To overthrow me, to keep all the food to themselves, because they're fools, blind fools who just don't understand the severity of the situation. They claim I am stealing their lives, controlling them, robbing them of their freedom. What freedom can be found out there now? And furthermore, did we not do the same to the 26 million people in our district? Did we not spread cover stories, force them from their homes, seize their valuables along the way? Did we not steal their lives as well?
“I have no choice. I’ll activate the Mass Production Cultivators. I’m merciful. Death is preferable to the hellscape beyond this facility. And then, once all is quiet, I may rest.”
Isaac thought of the man and woman in the wedding photograph. They looked so happy in that photo, but now their skeletons now littered the ground of the first floor, and even beyond that - according to this, they had robbed the livelihoods of twenty-six million people. Reed and Oksana looked down at their looted goods, which had apparently belonged to innocents, and slowly emptied their pockets. Even Oksana the snake bowed its head and allowed the rings to slip off its body.
“Our theory was correct,” Dan concluded. “About the fate of this facility’s occupants. Unfortunately, we’ve answered one question but ten more have replaced it.”
With dawn approaching, the cadets gathered any files they could find - of which, there weren’t many beyond Eberhardt’s letter and journal. Isaac memorized the odd symbol on the pistol and tossed the rusted hunk of metal away. He couldn’t help but think as he went through the motions of scanning for any more files in the office.
So the goal of restoring man to the Garden existed before the Unleashing. Cultivation did as well. The Central Region has been utterly destroyed-
“Trying to restore man to the Garden,” Isaac said aloud. “Is that what caused the Unleashing?”
Dan gazed at Eberhardt's skeleton. “Our school textbooks have always said it was a solar flare. But who writes those textbooks?”
Reed grimaced. “The State Police.”
Make that eleven more questions, Isaac dryly supposed. He shook himself awake - he could focus on all these questions during the drive home. Right now, he looked through the desk and found nothing of interest. He scanned the walls and found a tiny compartment. He grinned, only to discover an even tinier furnace that likely incinerated every file in the room. The empty hands of his comrades confirmed this. While the Zhanghai depot above contained valuable fuel and cultivation resources, all the cadets found down here were a few spare files and a mountain of mysteries.
“These beds look awfully comfy,” Reed muttered as the group descended downward, heading for the exit. But nobody was really in a joking mood anymore, so Reed sighed and nodded and looked at the scattered field of bones as the group exited the first floor and retracted their steps. They passed by the fallen bodies of the samurai, moved up the stairs, headed down the long corridor, and finally arrived back at the depot. Dan checked his watch and nodded for the group to keep moving.
They headed through that first tunnel, past rock walls, only the light on Oksana’s finger guiding them, until they reached the mouth of the cave. They had arrived just in time - the night sky was slowly, very slowly, starting to brighten. Just the precursor to the true crack of dawn.
Bell remained as a silent sentinel next to his radio the whole time. As they approached, he was in the midst of doing calisthenics and stretches. He paused, tilted his head, and smiled. “Welcome back. I’m glad everyone’s okay.”
Dan gazed down at the trail back to the waiting truck. “Same here. Now let’s get a move on.”
Earlier, Demetrius had brought out several crates of cultivation charm paper to take home. When Isaac reached down to scoop one, he paused. The whole landscape seemed too silent, far too silent. Not even the trees made a sound when they rustled. When he looked down at his hands, he found that they were trembling. He looked at Reed, only to see her frozen in place. Her face lacked any signs of horror or even forewarning - she was frozen in mid-stride. As was Dan, as was Demetrius, as was Oksana.
There was a flash of movement. Isaac turned and felt a deep, primordial fear run through him.
“Hello again, Isaac,” the Mind said, her arms crossed, leaning against the trunk of a nearby pine tree.