Chapter Eighteen
In the tunnels
Monday, March 19. 9.10 A.M. 125 S.A.
Piazza San Pietro, Vatican.
"What a mess." Van, a fey girl with long pink hair, looked out over St. Peter's Square and sighed, as she took off a pair of yellow glasses and tucked them in her coat.
There would be no mass that day. And apparently, there wouldn't be for the next few days either.
On the balustrade above Bernini's Colonnade, among the marble statues of the saints, security forces of the Vatican gendarmerie were moving. And, although she couldn't see them, she knew that sniper droids were probably guarding the perimeter at that moment.
Van was leaning against the columns, which gave the entrance to the Portone di Bronzo, and had been waiting for ten minutes. She had been distracted watching the Templar Guards, in their red and white armored uniforms walking back and forth across the oval square, and the same for the policemen and gendarmes standing around the trapezoid-shaped part of the square near the entrance to the Basilica di San Pietro.
They were not paying special attention to her, as she had already identified herself a while ago at the Arch of the Bells of the Swiss Guard.
Van was quite tall and of athletic build. She had dark green eyes, and also had long hair down to her waist, with the exception of two braids at her sides, which were knotted into a sort of bun at the back. She wore a long leather coat that revealed her shoulders and underneath a black sleeveless T-shirt, crossed with tactical buckles, dark pants and knee-high tactical boots.
What made Van special was that, although she did not wear a visible badge, she also belonged to the SID. More specifically to the intelligence branch.
https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/42dd80f9-5ac6-42d5-8ccc-bcea020b6152/dg63w8q-40bb5b88-f9f8-48c4-bb70-2eb912cebaad.jpg/v1/fit/w_828,h_1172,q_70,strp/nevermore_enygma_vol_3_chapter18_by_hasegawakein_dg63w8q-414w-2x.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9MTIyOCIsInBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzQyZGQ4MGY5LTVhYzYtNDJkNS04Y2NjLWJjZWEwMjBiNjE1MlwvZGc2M3c4cS00MGJiNWI4OC1mOWY4LTQ4YzQtYmI3MC0yZWI5MTJjZWJhYWQuanBnIiwid2lkdGgiOiI8PTg2OCJ9XV0sImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46c2VydmljZTppbWFnZS5vcGVyYXRpb25zIl19._OhXAQnvHDjX6qHr525N0O9s5XTowpx0TxnX8WUftlk [https://images-wixmp-ed30a86b8c4ca887773594c2.wixmp.com/f/42dd80f9-5ac6-42d5-8ccc-bcea020b6152/dg63w8q-40bb5b88-f9f8-48c4-bb70-2eb912cebaad.jpg/v1/fit/w_828,h_1172,q_70,strp/nevermore_enygma_vol_3_chapter18_by_hasegawakein_dg63w8q-414w-2x.jpg?token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWIiOiJ1cm46YXBwOjdlMGQxODg5ODIyNjQzNzNhNWYwZDQxNWVhMGQyNmUwIiwiaXNzIjoidXJuOmFwcDo3ZTBkMTg4OTgyMjY0MzczYTVmMGQ0MTVlYTBkMjZlMCIsIm9iaiI6W1t7ImhlaWdodCI6Ijw9MTIyOCIsInBhdGgiOiJcL2ZcLzQyZGQ4MGY5LTVhYzYtNDJkNS04Y2NjLWJjZWEwMjBiNjE1MlwvZGc2M3c4cS00MGJiNWI4OC1mOWY4LTQ4YzQtYmI3MC0yZWI5MTJjZWJhYWQuanBnIiwid2lkdGgiOiI8PTg2OCJ9XV0sImF1ZCI6WyJ1cm46c2VydmljZTppbWFnZS5vcGVyYXRpb25zIl19._OhXAQnvHDjX6qHr525N0O9s5XTowpx0TxnX8WUftlk]
The case that had occurred less than 48 hours earlier in Edinburgh, had set off all the alarms in all the cooperation agencies, so that the search was on for the two criminals who had usurped the identity of two forensic technicians to steal a decapitated body. The victim in question had been Sil Moore.
The two criminals had then disappeared, and attempts had been made to track them down, to no avail. Given that they both seemed to be quite good at handling information, and stealing identities, it was more than likely that they had headed elsewhere, or even left the UK. But at least, thanks to the testimony of the two forensic experts, they had obtained the information about what they looked like. Although it was possible that the identities they had shown were also false.
In any case, Van did not expect that the artificial intelligence of Siren Island would send her the warning that both had been detected in the vicinity of where she was. Well, not that close. She had received the warning at six o'clock in the morning and she was on Vitinia. She had driven the twelve kilometers in her speeder in a matter of minutes, to realize that it was a nightmare.
The gendarmerie forces, the Templar guards, the Swiss Guards and the Roman police had turned the place into a hotbed, due to what had happened in the early hours of the morning.
Three unconscious policemen, a device to alter matter at the molecular level, and a circle of Namazium had been the trigger. The AVH device and the namazium were not items anyone could get in a hardware store. It was material that was used for asteroid mining or military access. It was not common.
Both were used together to alter matter on an atomic scale by vibration. Namazium, named after a catfish called Namazu, which when it moved could cause earthquakes, was incredibly difficult to obtain and its production was regulated because it was a material only present in Martian terrain.
If something like that had been used just a few meters from the Vatican, without even the thieves bothering to take it back, it was a sign that something else had happened. It was enough money and it had just been abandoned. But, on the other hand, the question was, what were the criminals after then?
The security cameras had obtained their faces and their movements when they entered the alley and, although the AVH device was certainly in a compressed state when they entered, when they left the man was carrying a metal-looking backpack that he didn't have when he entered.
When police arrived on the scene, they discovered the circle in the grass and the AVH left behind.
It was then that alarm bells went off in the Holy See.
It did not matter what the subject was wearing when he left, but the fact that a device had been used for some unknown purpose, to modify an area of land on an atomic scale. The first thing that was done was to call in the Vatican's anti-sabotage and Rome's anti-terrorist forces in case they were confronted with an act of terrorism. This was due to the suspicion that something had been planted underground. However, the anti-sabotage force quickly came up with a strange fact.
The last configuration used in the AVH was almost 68 meters.
They checked the maps and there was nothing at that height. At least there was no modern infrastructure or any network passing right at that point. But there was something else. During the Second World War tunnels had been dug at that height, even though no one should have entered them for at least 205 years, when in the year 2021 of the Ancient Era, the underground parts of the Apostolic Palace and Archives were remodeled and the old entrances sealed.
These tunnels went underneath even the oldest necropolis, and most likely there were collapsed parts. But there was no doubt that at the point where the AVH device had been used it passed right through the end of an old tunnel, and from there the main tunnel could be reached in a matter of seconds or minutes with the right equipment. That went under St. Peter's Square and the main tunnel extended partly under the Apostolic Palace and the Basilica itself. So there was a possibility that someone could have planted something underground.
The Pope was evacuated to Castel San Angelo, and the College of Cardinals as a precaution, and activities were suspended for that Monday.
A depth sweep was made from the surface, but the depth was too shallow to know if there was anything underneath, nor could any significant heat source be detected, in case an explosive object had been planted.
Van arrived just as the antisabotage team, and the antiterrorist team, were moving into the basement of the Archive to reopen the old entrances to the tunnels. It was an hour-long task to drill through the thick layer of cement that had been used to seal the site.
In the meantime, Van had presented her credentials, which accredited her as a member of the SID, and explained that she was at there because the two criminals had made the trip from Edinburgh to the site, as there was a possibility of a link. However, there was also the fact that unregistered material had been used, which was known to have been the trigger for Dark Events on three occasions, during mining work on Phobos.
The Vatican had feys in the gendarmerie, and even as part of the Apostolic College, but it did not have agents dedicated to dealing with DEs. That fell under the jurisdiction of Rome, and the Nevermore station in the territory, which was located in Trevi. The Trevi station simply let Van handle it, since she was in the main branch of the Siren Island SID, and they sent two FRT members to help with the drilling work.
After a lot of pestering to be brought into the investigation, Van was finally accepted as part of the team that would go down to find out what had happened down there. The only thing that bothered her was what had happened only moments before, and what no one had told her about.
The security videos had provided the images of how the two criminals, for several hours prior to what had happened in the alley, had been following a Roman citizen, until they finally left him alone to commit their crime.
They had told her, but after the Pope himself had ordered that the person in question be placed under protection as well, in case the criminals were thinking of something against him. Apparently the Pope knew the person, because he taught courses to young people during the summers, and he had met him a couple of times on his vacation at Castel Gandolfo.
Van was unhappy that such a quick decision had been made. From her point of view, there was also the possibility that the person might be under protection from criminals and was therefore being followed. Although she could not deny that the opposite could be true, and that he was indeed in danger.
In her position she had to think of both the worst and best case scenarios, and weigh which was the most likely to occur. The profile of the person in question was normal and he was an academic. Beyond that there was nothing unusual about him. Not even fines or run-ins with the law. But she had experience that many times things were not as they appeared, and so she was being cautious.
"Miss Van." Van turned around, and there she found a gendarme who, gun in hand and mask covering his mouth, informed her in a dry tone. "You can come now. They're finished."
Van nodded and, taking a last glance at the Vatican police vehicles, followed the gendarme. With a order to her Neurowire she sent a command to the small turtle backpack she was carrying and a tactical mask appeared, covering her nose and mouth.
"Did they take the drone down?"
"Yes. That's what they're doing right now," the gendarme reported.
They walked through the Apostolic Palace until they reached the Archives, passed through long corridors and from there down to the basement, where at least 30 people with masks had gathered and a light cloud of dust covered everything due to the efforts to perforate the layer of cement on the floor. An opening at least two meters in diameter had been opened and, when looking at the bottom, a series of rough and almost destroyed looking steps could be seen.
An AVH device similar to the one found had been used, but with greater care and precision although it took longer to operate.
One of the people in the room at that moment was still and with his eyes closed and everyone seemed expectant of him. He was the one in charge of operating the drone that at that moment was circulating through the tunnel.
After a couple of minutes he opened his eyes and looked at everyone. "There are no devices emitting signals, no abnormal heat sources. Only the air is dangerous to breathe and the place is in a very bad state."
Far from that being a sign of relief, it still remained to go down below to conduct a thorough investigation of the site.
One man from the group, who was in charge of anti-sabotage, would lead the expedition accompanied by five personnel from the same group, along with six from the gendarmerie sector, all directed in turn by the one who had brought the drone down, since he would be sending the indications of the tunnels traced by the drone.
Van would be added to the team and they agreed to communicate only by Neurowire, due to the state of the tunnel. They did not want the reverberating sound of the voices, although they could be attenuated with the masks, could produce any detachment in the tunnel excavated in earth and rock. Although they had sent a couple of extra drones with devices to deploy a force field to keep the walls safe, they didn't want to take any chances considering there was a necropolis between the top and the tunnel.
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The team went down one at a time, alternating several meters until another could enter, because some parts could break off on the way down. Luckily nothing happened and after a few minutes everyone was down.
In Van's Neurowire flashed warnings telling her that she was in an environment with air that was dangerous to breathe, due not only to the dust in suspension, but also due to mold that had accumulated over time.
Everyone had their dual-spectrum night vision activated before entering, and that would help to find not only the path, but detect any heat source that the drone would not have found on its first sweep.
[Careful from here on out. First one to see anything send a signal. Don't touch anything]
The group walked through the tunnel and, after a couple of minutes, finally arrived where the huge main tunnel opened up.
[How many are supposed to have worked on this?] Van asked, looking at the dimensions of the place in amazement.
[Given the time in which this excavation was done, and because of the state it is not in the official records, I would say it was done in a hurry, but there must have been a good dozen workers,] someone reported.
[In fact, there is almost no record of the tunnels themselves. This has been abandoned for a long time. We had to resort to some older blueprints to figure it out,] said a third, who Van could not identify whether he was from the group with her, or the one on the surface.
It was certainly of enormous dimensions and with boxes of different sizes on the sides. Many of them were neatly arranged, although, due to time and humidity, the wood had been rotting over the years.
Some boxes that Van checked almost fell apart at the slightest touch, revealing papers that had become moldy and black in color, making it impossible to read anything written on them.
Whatever the other boxes contained, it must not have been of much importance if they had left everything behind to be ruined. Or maybe there had been more boxes that once the war was over had been removed, leaving the things that mattered the least down there. Really, given the crude construction, and the precarious porches, with wood that barely resisted, it seemed that it was something that had been planned in a hurry and not to be used for too long.
The whole group searched everywhere, moving away from each other. The tunnel, by its dimensions, did indeed reach St. Peter's Basilica.
Van was about to check another box with a broken corner when she heard the signal.
[Here! I found footprints!] It was the voice of one of the men who, by the sign of his distant light, must be in the nearest part under the square. [And I think you had better come and see this.]
The group walked quickly to the place and assembled there they saw that there were footprints that had been recently produced. Given the statures of the criminals and the size of the footprints, it was more than certain that it was the man disguised as a priest.
Following the footprints they quickly followed the walking pattern and were confronted by a larger box, where two suitcases rested on top of it. One was small and the other larger. There was a gap between the two and, from the dust marks all around, and with no dust in the center, it was easy to deduce that something had been moved from there a short time ago.
[This small one looks like…]
[Exactly the same size as that man was carrying on his back,] Van finished.
Whatever it was, it gave off no heat signature and, given the layer of dust on the top, and rust on the bottom, it was certain that they had been there for a long time, even though the material they appeared to be made of seemed to be quite good as it retained quite a bit of luster.
Van read the numbers on the suitcases. There was no doubt that the missing one was number two and it must be the one the thief had removed. [What is this supposed to be?]
[I just sent images to the database and they don't seem to match any of the files,] someone near Van said.
She read the numbers on the suitcases. [1986… Well, they are made of durable material. I think it is correct to think that they are more than two centuries old.]
Someone from the counter-sabotage team took both of them and put them on the floor. They had a combination system, but that was no problem. He took out a small bottle from his portable equipment and by inserting a drop of nano-oil into the combination system in less than ten seconds he was able to know the numbers that corresponded to each suitcase.
[1.05457 and 1.9864,] the man said, and put the numbers on each suitcase.
Everyone crowded around to get a better look, but the contents of the first case did not surprise them at all. Indeed the material of which they were made had been good enough to prevent the deterioration of the objects inside.
The first one was a kind of small valve computer. Although the shape, and the way it was made, reminded them a bit of an old equalizer.
[What is it supposed to be?] someone asked.
The anti-sabotage member shrugged his shoulders.
Van quickly ran through her database looking for something similar, but didn't find it. If that was from 1986 she was already on the planet back then, but she didn't remember seeing anything like it.
Then, when they opened the third, and heaviest one, they found that when they opened it they were in front of a screen. It wasn't like there was an old television. It was a screen with some controls but it had undoubtedly been made to fit the shape of the suitcase.
Everyone stared at the find without knowing what it was. But Van looked at the screen again and then read the number with which the suitcases were marked.
She remembered seeing that screen somewhere a long time ago. So long ago that even she herself was surprised that she could remember it. It was from old newspaper news of the Ancient Era.
It can't be, Van thought.
[It can't be true,] said the anti-sabotage man.
[What is it?] someone asked.
The man was about to say something, but seemed to be hesitating whether to say it. [When I was at the academy, we always made jokes about the secrets that were hidden here.]
[Did you know of the existence of these tunnels?]
[No. I mean there have always been legends regarding what's underneath, but they were always rumors.]
[1986,] Van said, and the man stared at her and smiled incredulously.[Do you understand, miss?]
[Yes. But is it possible?]
[What?] Asked another member of the team.
[I had already arrived on the planet at that time, and in 1986 the news was quite loud for a few weeks, until it all died down.]
[About what?] Asked another.
[That a scientist and priest had succeeded in building a machine to look back in time,] Van said
Everyone stared at Van and the man from the anti-sabotage team.
[Is that a joke?] Asked one of the nearby gendarmes.
[No. It's not. The most correct thing to say would be that it was an old wives' tale. Nothing more.]
[Exactly,] Van said. [Still, an old wives' tale that someone went to great lengths to steal a part of the machine that is supposed to make it work.]
They all looked at each other not quite knowing what to say to those words.
[The machine in question was called the Chronovisor. It does not appear in any file because it is part of a legend of that time and the truth is that, after it appeared a little in the press, the whole thing was forgotten shortly after. Being nothing more than another urban legend. Nevertheless, over the years the legend survived thanks to the Old Internet, but so many details were added that nobody knew which part was true and which part was a lie.]
[So, what? All this time there has been a time machine underneath the Piazza San Pietro?] A gendarme asked.
[No. The legend says that the machine only served to see into the past.]
Another of the gendarmes snapped his fingers.
[Don't do that!] He was scolded by another one nearby.
[I'm sorry, I just remembered. I read it a long time ago about that legend, that they said they had obtained a photograph of the time when Jesus Christ had been on the Golgotha].
Van nodded. [Exactly. But then it turned out that the picture was taken from another sanctuary. It wasn't true.]
[So the machine... is it true or false?]
[Whether it's real or fake, it's the same thing. Someone used a forbidden device inside the city to extract a part of this thing. For the thieves it is clear that the part they removed must be worth something. Only as a historical piece it must be worth enough.]
[If it's just that, then I'm glad, but this could be something worse. Why leave two parts and only steal one?]
Van looked at the one who said that. [Article 7081-7I].
[Excuse me?]
[Time travel research will be regulated, in view of the development of Dark Events, because there have been cases where certain artifacts have caused disturbances in spacetime.]
[What?]
Van's face was too serious for her to be joking. Van knew it well, after all she had a friend, a certain hyperactive teacher with messy brown hair, who had been linked to a certain time travel experiment during the Great War against the Fractus.
[Right... it's one of the laws called silly laws. I had forgotten.]
During the war against the Fractus two fractus cores had been found that had a link to time. The first fractus had been found destroyed in the Kuril Islands, and its core used in an experiment that had caused the destruction of an laboratories complex in Japan.
The second fractus, located in Russia, simply destroyed itself, leaving behind a core composed of 48 fragments. That had happened at the same time as Japan.
During all that time, Dark Events had been occurring, where time seemed to be a factor that could not be ignored, and incidents with experiments occurred in various parts of the world after the war, causing serious incidents.
Therefore, the Council, together with the United Nations and the Interplanetary Peace Organization, passed laws in year six of the Singularity Era to regulate the conduct of time-related experiments. The nature of the Dark Events demanded that certain experiments could only be carried out by control bodies, so as not to cause consequences.
The second fractus core, fragmented into 48 parts, had been kept under study by the Russian Academy of Sciences, mostly as a pretty paperweight. Because it didn't matter how they studied and experimented. That nucleus did not seem to possess any qualities that made it stand out.
But that had changed in the past year.
A few weeks before the arrival of a certain Keelian fey, missing for over two hundred years, the place where the fragments were kept was attacked, and the 48 fragments stolen. No one was found responsible and even the Russian Division of Nevermore and Veria investigated the event, without coming up with any clues as to what had happened.
Van sighed and said. [In the off chance that this machine really works, it must be searched for immediately. False or true, it should not be underestimated that sometimes the unconscious itself plays a role in Dark Events].
[You mean if someone really believes they can do something with it, like time travel, they can do it? It's an antique! It would be insane.]
[Belief in a miracle is no longer a joke. Or do you not believe in the power of words and mind? If there was no God before, the human species has created them by its own means. Magic is not part of the creed now, even though it was persecuted in the past?]
At that all fell silent and looked at each other. Everyone there, including Van, believed in something higher, even if they had different names. Influencing an object in the belief that it would work was a strange effect of the Dark Events that had been tested on different occasions. In case the machine really could see into the past, what were they looking for by stealing it?
That was giving Van a headache. Leaving Edinburgh to steal something from the Vatican? It was as if the thieves were raiding different parts, without worrying too much about leaving clues behind. Or did they have a reason for it? Who were they to begin with? With what had happened to Sil Moore there were many doubts, but they had certainly stolen her body. Were they linked to the Shadow People? Or with the team that attacked Jim Stuart and the cops?
It was then that Van remembered something she had been reading outside while waiting to be called. Lee Reubens' profile and resume. [...!]
The gendarmes were talking among themselves, while the man in the suitcases was explaining something, but Van wasn't listening. She read the resume, thinking that maybe she was wrong, but she wasn't. [Look at his resume.]
[Sorry?]
[Lee Reubens, the man the Pope asked them to find to protect,] Van waved her hand and sent the file over, highlighting the part she wanted them to read.
One of the areas where Lee Reubens had specialized was precisely virtual astroparticles with the possibility of applications for simulating future scenarios, and also a concept of neurobiological tempo-memory. In other words time travel, but only into the future and the second was related to the psychological arrow of time.
Those present read the fragment and were even more confused.
[We have to question him, it is too much of a coincidence that the thieves have stolen what is believed to be a time machine, and that hours before they had been following someone whose area of expertise also included chrononautics].
[Can't it be possible? Do you think that professor sent them?]
[I don't know, but we shouldn't dismiss it,] Van said.
While they were engaged in discussion, the farthest member of the team pointed his flashlight to the sides. As he moved his feet, he felt he had just stepped on something that felt strange and he looked down and pulled his foot away.
He brought his hand to the ground and picked up something metallic filled with dirt. He removed it by rubbing it between his fingers. It was an old .22 caliber bullet casing. They didn't make them that way anymore and it had the back of it obliterated.
What's this doing here? he wondered. And he tried to get the attention of his companion, who was about four meters ahead of him. He was standing with his back to some large boxes and on top of them rested another one, but there was a wide space between them.
That's when he saw it.
At the feet of his companion he could see something that barely peeked out of the darkness of the boxes, and that could not be seen well unless it was illuminated from a certain angle. The gendarme rushed to his companion and pointed the flashlight into the gap between the boxes.
Van had continued to explain and talk to the anti-sabotage man and they were both surprised when voices from behind called out to them. [Here! You'd better take a look at this!]
Van looked toward the place where other gendarmes had already swarmed and approached.
There stood a skeleton, dressed in an early twenty-first century suit, giving them a void stare.
Between his fingers, in his right hand, rested a photo, which the lamination had saved from the passage of time. And, in his left hand, an old wick lighter. Two holes could be seen in his chest.
The photo was still clutched tightly, as if even death would not detach it from that piece of laminate.
Van bent down and carefully removed the photo and looked at it. It was a smiling young woman with two little girls, one was no more than thirteen or fourteen years old and the other was a baby who couldn't have been more than a year old.
Without saying anything, Van then stared into the empty sockets of the skeleton.
Given the pose, the photo and the lighter, it was more than easy to tell which was the last image those eyes had seen before they left the world.