The girl in black stepped down the rough wooden stairs. The thick planks had long since turned dark gray from soaking in the mud for all this time. She stepped onto the pavement and listened the store door close behind her.

Mariann took a deep breath. Cool morning air. Very cool. Only a few hours ago, the earth had been frozen and the grass white frosted. But then the pale sun had risen in the East from behind the Unknowable Lands and turned the gray sky barely blue once again. And in six hours, in midday, one could expect a nice weather of late summer, which had become natural to this place.

She headed down the street towards West. During early morning hours like these, the Nameless Town looked even more lonely and mysterious than usually. Without direct sunlight and warmth, the air was full of some strange force, some strange portent which froze the dew on the ground and drove people off the streets behind the doors and windows and thick drawn curtains, as close as possible to sources of fire.

Cold Air as an ancient and forgotten force of nature, only remembered in the fevered writings of a children’s author of some cold mountainous and Nordic land. Mysterious winter god who had thus far existed only in books unread and unwritten, almanacs bound in human skin. But now, due to some sloppy rite, he was loose way before his time. Tired and angry, pouring his rage on anybody who looked like that lone mage who had conjured him.

And thus it was haunting this town, which had plenty of memories and ghosts walking around in broad daylight and nobody thought it weird. And thus he froze the ground, covered the potholes with ice. And if his anger was especially great, he could even freeze living things to death at a moment’s notice and caused strange spots all around the city where the temperature drops focused. In some rare places the drop was so steep that air itself froze into a white ball, causing freeze burns and fell on the ground to break apart and sublimate. True sign that something which should have remained between the walls of the ritual chamber, was loose and had dissolved in the freedom of the world. Flowing around in it according to its own desire or by laws yet unknown to human intelligence.

Only a figure of her imagination. As long as only she believed in it. But when others started to believe it as well, especially in a place like the Nameless Town… things could become pretty interesting pretty fast.

She stopped and looked up. She was standing by Jaan’s dark green two-door, looking at him doing something behind the raised trunk lid.

“You ready to go?” she asked.

“I am.” He replied. He pulled a revolver and opened the drum.

“You won’t be needing it.” Mariann said. “Never around here.”

“Possible. I feel more secure when I have it with me.”

“Possible.” She repeated with a faint smile. “Until you shoot it at me, thinking me a sky person or a ghost or a deformed forest beast or a feral hospital patient.”

“Do you plan to go to the Crazy Woods behind Luiga?” Jaan asked.

“Nope. Even if I did, I would not bring weapons along. They always do more harm than good. Your doctor friend is a prime example how much damage one can do with weapons and how far into the forest one can drive a person, both actually and spiritually.”

“You don’t trust psychiatry?”

“Psychiatry is one thing. What he’s doing is a whole other matter.” She sighed. “Virve is out of ice cream.”

“Yeah, there was a small dust-up in the bar last night.” Jaan said. “Four men went into the forest but only three came out. One reportedly spontaneously combusted. And suddenly the bar was full of men in impeccable black suits and fedoras. They literally appeared out of nowhere. We didn’t even hear the cars pull up. And they started to interrogate the people regarding what happened in the forest. Finally they emptied the bar and closed it for the night. Probably to keep people from soaking up more liquid bravery and then heading back into the forest with pitchforks. Well, all of them went straight to Virve’s place to continue drinking, talking and of course, for the ice cream.”

“Virve has liquor?” Mariann asked. “I thought only the Village Dude was making that?”

“To be honest, everybody’s making their own. But the Village Dude and Virve are the only ones whose stuff is drinkable. Others just pour it into their cars in an arbitrary mix with gas. Just to have less contact with the Boys from the North. And honestly, it may be my fault you could not get ice cream this morning.”

“How’s that?” she asked.

Seeing the man beckon her, she stepped closer and took into the trunk to see see several blocks of dry ice on a bare steel trunk floor, surrounding cardboard boxes full of ice cream.

“When did you buy that?”

“Three o’clock last night. Eduard promised to have a new batch ready by ten this morning, He said he would come to the Institute for the nitrogen at nine. I said that he could also use dry ice for the ice cream but he did not agree. He was adamant that nitrogen left a better taste than dry ice.”

“A matter of taste really.” She said, closing the trunk lid. “It is time for us to go.”

“Why this early in the morning?” Jaan asked.

“The sun is not yet to it’s usual height in the sky, the air is cool and thus the nature can not tell as many lies.” She said opening the passenger side door.

“You don’t have a camera this time?”

“Nope. What I want to show you is a relatively old thing, There’s nothing left to photograph.”

“Nothing left to photograph?” he asked. “Okay then.”

He started the engine.

“So tell me about this Volga which ran off the road.”

The girl smiled before saying anything else. “Did you learn anything new in the low light of the bar?”

“The village men went all quiet when I mentioned it. Nobody had anything to say. At the same time nobody wanted to deny it either. One of the more friendly Officials from the North pulled me aside ad explained it.”

“A friendly Man in Black?” Mariann asked incredulously. “What story?”

“He said that the youngsters in the North near the capital had stolen a car and went on a joyride aiming to drive through the neighboring country. But they got lost somewhere and ended up near the town. As everybody knows, there is only one way out of here. They drove around the town once and then on the Northern section of the road, either a badger or a boar or something like that ran in front of them. They tried to dodge it and ended up in the divot.

“As this was not a local problem a lone aging constable and some village guys with pitchforks could do something about, their special service took over the case cleaned away the car and the bodies.”

“That’s something new.” Mariann said. “Believable bullshit.”

“What do you think happened to them then?” he asked.

“You were there.” Mariann smiled. “you saw for yourself.”

“The only thing I saw was them seeing something on the road and trying to dodge it. Honestly, I don’t even know what I saw!”

“You saw what happened.” She said. “he villagers don’t want to tell you what happened because their stories are all relatively similar. The devil sent its fire-breathing mount into the world who took a shape which let itself be understood only by the select few. He let the mount pick four lost souls and then joined them to take their souls to hell.”

“Sounds a lot like a story from some book in the Institute.”

“Well, it probably is.” She said. “my vision is somewhat... different. Those five souls were on their way to the Lake of Forgetfulness, to meet people whom the world had forgotten. However nobody explained to them that one cannot return to the Lake of Forgetfulness. And one cannot also stay there. The only way is to move forward.”

“Then I have an obvious question.” Jaan said, pushing his frameless glasses higher on his nose. “Forward where? What lies beyond the Lake of Forgetfulness?”

“The Unknowable Land.” She said with a pensive glance. “On the other side of the Lake of Forgetfulness is The Unknowable Land and the Nameless Town.” She looked out of the window. “The Substation. Stop the car please.”

Before Jaan had even managed to stop the car, she opened the door and stepped out. Without waiting for him, she walked to the cooling pool built next to the radio tower reaching into the sky. She stopped at the very edge, looking at the water vapor above the hot surface of the pool. She could feel the hot vapor hit her in the face, and warm everything around her. Everything here, but not 200 meters high where the top of the tower was. The bottom itself standing on three legs and anchored on a massive slab of concrete.

Mariann started walking towards it, across the cracked asphalt pavement which was the very last bit of a long gone street and section of the circle road and touched one of the frosted over metal legs of the mast. She looked back at the pool, feeling a warm draft hit her. The frost under her fingers melted and turned to water flowing out from under her palm and down the support beam.

“What is it?” Jaan asked.

He then raised his head to look at the top of the lone tower, which seemed to sway in the wind. He too felt as if the tower was fastened to the sky, and not to the ground, it looked that stretched out.

“Do you believe in winter?” She asked.

“In what sense?” He asked back.

“That winter still exists.”

She pushed herself away from the mast and walked back to the pool, kneeling at the very edge.

“Yeah, this is not warm enough to have a good soak in.” She said quietly.

“That winter still exists?” Jaan asked again, not understanding the question.

“That winter still exists.” She repeated again. “That it could even return. That early morning white dew and frozen small puddles are but a foreplay to something greater and not all there could ever be. Only a pathetic shadow of eras passed which now only exist in books nobody remembers, in memories nobody talks about. Do you believe that leaves could turn from green to yellow? That they can dry and fall of the trees leaving behind black branches? Do you believe that snow is something real and not just a peculiar phantasm and shared madness of our own making?”

She stopped for a moment.

“Maybe this place here, the Substation, a mast similar to the one as once was at Türi. A pool full of boiling coolant water… maybe all of them have somehow affected the world around us so that nature has gotten stuck, has petrified in place. Or it is returning like a pendulum between the end of spring and the beginning of autumn.”

“Like an unending summer.” Jaan said.

“Just like one.” She agreed. “Something repeating, but not unending. The eternity of it is only seeming. Seeming to those who are able to notice the repetition or think in repetitions. What is eternal is free. What is periodic is not.”

Both turned their heads, hearing a low rumble approaching. This was generated by a black and wide low-slung car decorated heavily in chrome. It rolled on whitewall tires not missing a single pothole on the old pavement. In the nose of the car there were two big chrome grilles which looked like air intakes of an old turbine engine. Chromed bumpers, chromed window frames, in addition a thick chrome line running on the side of it. The most noticeable things however were bright red tail light sitting above the bodywork in a silver circular pods with rings, reminding of radio microphones from times lost.

The vehicle parked on the side of the road, right next to Jaan’s Cadillac. It was evident that despite the marked difference in age and philosophy of styling, the vehicle had much the same size and proportions.

“This is not a Russian car.” Jaan said. “Officials from the North?”

“No, it is not.” Mariann said. “The brand is not the correct one. The Officials from the North like cars from the same era, when cars were inspired by aircraft designs, but of a different brand. The same one you have, actually, a Cadillac. Exclusively. This here is a mid-century Imperial. I should have brought my camera.”

“You didn’t hope to meet anybody new today?” Jaan asked.

“Excuse me!” a man sounded out after emerging from the car. “Where I can find lodging in this town?”

“Drive on, then turn left on the next intersection and then to the right. The hotel is on your right.” Jaan explained.

“Thanks!” The stranger raised his hat and got back into the car.

“Those young people in their Volga.” Mariann said, walking back toward the car.

She then stopped and stood with her side towards the man. “They did not drive off the road due to excessive speed. They weren’t looking for a way into the Nameless Town. They were looking for a way out. They could not find it.”

“Mariann.” Jaan asked. “What was it really that jumped on the road in front of them?”

She did not reply, but he could see she wanted to. She just gave a mysterious smile and continued towards the lone car standing next to the Substation.

“Maybe I am wrong.” She said when he got back in the car and started the engine. “Maybe all the opinions I have are mistaken. Everything I see, feel and think, even what I cannot feel, maybe it is all mistaken. That everything I have done, discovered and thought until now, may disappear into nothingness within a few seconds after the alarm clock cuts harshly into my reality. Maybe it is all a dream.”

“That’s what you’re afraid of?” Jaan asked.

“Yes. I am afraid that when I fall asleep I will awaken somewhere else. That when I awaken from a dream I awaken somewhere else.”

“A negative hell.” He said. “To continue developing your idea.”

“If only it was my idea.” She gave a sigh.

“Where next?” Jaan asked. “What was it that you wanted to show me?”

“Towards the North.” She replied. “It’s on the side of the road, I will tell you when we get to the right place.”

“But you’re not telling me what it is.” He said, with a slight smile.

“If I started to explain this to you right now, then after we have gone there, I would have to explain it to you again. And right now I am thinking that with two explanation I can bring out six separate theories to you, if not more. Which of course will confuse you even more.”

Beyond the turn, a faint beam of light appeared, followed by a three-axle Ural off-road truck, in turn followed by three black semi-trucks with no license plates, trying to drive in each other’s wind. Every truck had two weight bearing axles and on each trailer there were two 20-foot naval containers with familiar “Yadernoprom” writing.

“Where are they going this way either?” She asked, in thought. “I’m sorry.” She pulled the steering wheel and turned the car sideways blocking the road.

She stepped out of the vehicle to see how the convoy passed the Substation and the radio tower without a decrease in speed and then disappeared beyond the next turn.

“Do not… Ever… Do that… Again.” Jaan said slowly. “It is a much better question where they’re coming from.”

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“Fine, next time we’ll take my car.” She said. “Where they’re coming from is simple: from the Train Yard. But they cannot get to the Underground Base without going through the city. Nobody wants to drive on the Northern section of the circular road because it goes by the Radiating Woods. However, nobody drives the Southern road because it goes through a cemetery several hundred years old and is filled with holes and depressions which may not be a problem for an off-road truck but will for others.”

“Let me guess, modular reactors again?” He asked.

“Yes, something important is going on.”

“Wait, in the Underground Base?”

“Yes. Located next to the Missile Base, slightly to the south, West of the Dacha Suburb. But that is a story for another time. Considering those trucks, probably a story for the third or fifth time.”

“Okay then.” He said. “Are you seeing what you’re looking for?”

“Right here. See that concrete fence? Right there.”

“What’s so interesting and special in a concrete fence?” These look like the fallen over wall section near the North-Eastern gate.”

“You’ll see.” She said, opening the car door.

The both jumped over the watery ditch and towards the pile of broken stone buried in a tall grass. This pile had once been a fence made of upright concrete sections, although it was now impossible for Jaan to tell what the purpose had been.

“This is not a fence.” Mariann said, having walked to the few section still standing.

“I did not say anything.” He replied.

“You did not have to. I could see your thoughts on your face.”

“Okay. If these are not the remains of some sort of a fence, then what are they?”

“Come here, you’ll see from here.”

With carefully placed steps he advanced on the side of the divot. His feet were obscured by the tall grass which was also a perfect hiding place for sharp pieces of concrete, cracks between the pieces and all sorts of broken pieces of steel girdles. Most of these had rusted to near invisibility by attaining the same tone as the rest of the rain-soaked nature. This made his walk at least as dangerous as going to explore the Unknowable Lands South of the town. Sure, there were no open graves but plenty of chances for stumbling, slipping and either breaking something or being impaled on something.

“What should I be seeing here?” He asked.

“This.”

Mariann used her fingers to break some concrete from a still standing section of the wall. Pieces that Jaan had until this very moment thought to be concrete. After rubbing the material and the wall fro some moments, she revealed rubber-covered steel girdle under that soft plaster.

“Steel reinforcement. “He said, “Rubber covered. Unusual but nothing special.”

She continued to break more of the soft material resembling concrete to reveal a large section of intertwined rubber-covered mesh, with a square pitch. She then peeled a section of the rubber off one of the bars revealing a copper-colored woven wire.

“Does this look like steel to you?” She asked. “I would say this is copper. And what would you say about the square pitch of the mesh? Looks like about 20 centimeters in diagonal right?”

“So it looks like steel reinforcement, but is really rubber-covered copper wire?” He asked. “Why on earth..?”

“Because this is not a reinforced wall section, it only looks like it is. These have been here for a long time and nobody has ever been interested why they are here. That’s why everybody keeps thinking that this was literally a closed town with a fence surrounding it. And the only things resembling a fence are the piles of stone and few tilted panels.”

“While in reality…?” He asked.

“While in reality, there panels have always been tilted like this, since they were installed. Also, this tilted fence once surrounded the whole town. Just that elsewhere it has either fallen into crushed stone due to forces of nature or the needs of the war. Or they were torn down when they got into the way of fields needing plowing. Some of it may be under the buildings, forests and the ground.”

“Yes, but what is it?” Jaan asked. “Why should anybody erect a fence that barely stands?”

“Because it is not a fence.”

She kicked a concrete block on the ground which also had the ends of the wire sticking out of it. This too was standing at an angle, installed into the ground like that.

“What does it remind you of when imagine it encircling the town?”

“According to the angle, I would think it to be a parabolic… it’s an antenna?!”

“Yes.” Mariann smiled. “I would also think that. A gigantic parabolic antenna built under the town and the ground, just like radio telescopes.”

“But this theory cannot have any ground.” He replied. “The town has been in its place nearly three hundred years. And they only managed to build the first gigantic radio telescopes in the middle of this century. Never mind that if it was as big as the town then it should have a diameter of...”

“More than 2 kilometers.” She said. “I am aware of it.”

“Also, this would be just a reflector, it would also need an antenna to focus on. It should be in the middle of the town and looking at the angle of these walls, sit relatively low. All parabolic shapes are reflectors so-...” He suddenly stopped talking.

“I assume you have an idea?” She asked.

“The Western tower of the Institute.” He said. Looking back at the spires on the Institute towers. “On the third floor of that is the Black hall. Above that, one the fourth floor, there is a former Disused room, right now it is used for storage.”

“the Disused room?”

“Yes, it has a somewhat concave ceiling. From the edges of the room it is almost full four meters in height, but in the center, only maybe one and a half. The size, shape and the height of it should be pretty close to the parabola here.”

“It should?”

“It would also be madness.” He took of his glasses to rub his eyes.

“Three hundred years! The institute and the town are almost that old. It is insanity to think somebody built it for radio astronomy. Never mind the frequency spectrum. This grid has a diagonal pitch of no more than around 20 centimeters. This means no more that 1.5 gigahertz of frequency. This is clearly radio astronomy before there was any notion of the radio spectrum existing.”

“Frequency pitch of around 20 centimeters.” Mariann said. “You know what this would mean right?” She sat on the pile of stone. “The hydrogen line, or the 21 centimeter line, equal to 1420MHz and change. Perfect for deep space communications between star systems and even galaxies as it is not obscured by clouds of space dust.”

“You’re forgetting that space is really big and the speed of light is really slow, compared to the size of the universe?”

“Not that big.” Mariann said. “And not that slow, just that human life is really fleeting. And what if there was a party out there who has been beaming out the same message for say a few thousand years. Because their race is almost eternal to ours. It all looks like a perfect fit. We have a gigantic microwave parabola, we have focal point, if we were to believe your story. And we have 20 megawatt modular reactors.”

“How do you know they are modular reactors?” Jaana asked. “They could also be RTGs.”

“To collect enough radioactive material for a thermal output to justify the use of 7 twenty foot containers? I don’t think so. RTG’s are more of a cold place thing, like deep space, or the Arctic.”

You are pretty sure about the words on the containers.” He said.

“I have my own sources which allow me to be certain about these. But it doesn’t matter. Can you show me these two chambers at the Institute?”

“Today? He sighed. “I have no idea, honestly. I would probably have to hunt down the keys for both rooms all across the Institute.”

“Not a problem for me.” Mariann gave a smile. “Allows me to get to your unfairly acquired ice cream.”

“Unfairly?” He asked, as they started walking back towards the car. “You could have bought more yesterday yourself.”

“I would have if I knew that I could have bought by the box.”

“Would you have had enough banknotes denominated in marks?”

“Maybe not, but I have plenty of Reindorff kroons.”

“Maybe in the North, Reindorff kroons are a big thing, but not here. Here life takes it’s own path, as you well know.”

“Better than you.” She smiled.

The next moment her face grew serious. “This parabola could not have been built by anybody in at least the past 300 years.”

“Yes.” Jaan agreed.

“But maybe it was not built in the past at all? Maybe… it was built in the future?” She asked, leaning on the car.

“In the future? You mean will be built in the future?” He had opened the front door of the car and was now staring at the girl on the other side of the roof between them.

“’Was built’ sounds better. There are two ways to understand this. Either, somehow, time is flowing backwards with regards to this structure...”

“Or?” Jaan asked.

“Or… I don’t know.” There was this peculiar smile on her face again. “I cannot explain it in any understandable language, but there is another option of it being built in the future so that in the past it has always existed and at the moment there is an important… focal point. Where there exist the dish, the Institute and the technology to start it up.”

“Your inner world is strange.” He said. “And when I say it about somebody, it really means something.”

“The strangeness is only seeming.” She replied and then finally got into the car.

He turned the engine on and then the car around, heading back onto the road, which soon turned into a street of the Nameless Town. Where the roadside bush ended and the town began, one could only tell by a line on actual concrete wall sections ending in a derelict boarded up brick building which could have been a checkpoint some time in the past.

At that same place where the circular road around the town forked into two. Old and tired potholed section of the circular road going right between the Substation and the radio tower. To mark that the tower really belonged to the Substation, there was a rusty chain-link fence surrounding the whole place, and for extra measure, the pavement was also dug out on two sections right near the fence.

He turned onto the rough pavement of the main street of the town. The original name of the street had disappeared into the history along with the name of the town as well as the names of many locals. Or any and all past dates and years of the this place, even the limits of eras were muddled. Nothing was clear, it was all cloudy, it was all as if within a dream.

“You have grown quiet.” Jaan said. “Out of theories?”

“For now.” She said. “If I had brought my camera along, I would have plenty of additional theories. However despite not having theories, there is plenty of the mystical. So much in fact that this it is hard to put into words. Too much to explain it and then to re-explain it so that everybody else beside me would also understand.”

“I would be rather surprised if I understood your explanations in one go.” Jaan smiled.

“Well, we will soon see how much of you can understand my more wilder theories.”

Her gaze was directed out of the car window, to see the gigantic Neo-Romanesque main building of the Balto-German Esoteric Institute and its massive towers emerge from between the other buildings. He parked his car on the other side of the street, under a faded and rust-covered traffic sign the meaning of which nobody could recall.

She exited the car and shut the door.

“A haunted castle. Much more of a haunted castle than the hospital, Luiga or the old school building. Even more than the abandoned house I am now standing before.” She said.

“The house you’re standing before is not quite abandoned. One of the Village Hags is still living in it.”

“Well, then not too abandoned.” She said. “As long as there is still one person who remembers and uses the building and takes care of it.”

“Remembers what?” Jaan asked.

“The glory days.” She sighed and walked around the car. “There were some more interesting halls you wanted to show me?”

The ascended the staircase of massive blocks of stone towards the tall main door of the Institute, standing ominously before them. He opened the door for her and the both stepped into the dark foyer of the building. Although there were uncovered windows letting in light, somehow this light did not offer any illumination. The door closed behind them with a loud noise capable of breaking down even the strongest of wills. A noise which reverberated back from inside the building and drilled itself into one’s innards.

She advanced with a heavy step. Dark wood everywhere. On the floor and the ceiling, even the walls were covered in it. Even the main staircase, creeping higher along the walls of the foyer which itself was several floors high, was made of dark heavy wood. The main staircase encircled a massive chandelier made up of hundreds or even thousands of small lights, covering several floor’s in height. The bulbs seemed to be barely lit, the glowing incandescent wire was clearly visible with no issues or discomfort and the light it cast was no brighter than a small fire.

The thought behind it was actually very clear. In America in a fire depot, there was a 7 watt bulb burning day and night for over a hundred years. It was very likely that the dim bulbs on this chandelier also lasted at least half that time.

“I’m gonna go and...” Jaan started. “...find somebody who has the set of keys.”

“Is there a danger that you won’t find them?” the girl in black asked.

“No there isn’t. The main door was open so somebody must be in the building. And since there aren’t too many people still working here then… it will take a couple of minutes.”

She looked how the man departed with long steps, a long a corridor with high vaulted ceilings. At the end of the hallway there seemed to be a derelict wardrobe. In the section visible from where she was standing, she could not see any clothing there. Also there still lingered the feeling that the Institute was located as if in a different world compared to that which lied beyond those heave doors. The windows outside were only images and lit panels. The did not convey the reality outside but whatever they were designed to convey. To create a secure feeling for people, a familiar sense of the world, which would not remind them every moment that they were away from their home.

Suddenly, the deafening silence was broken by a phone ringing out. It froze her in place for a moment, made her look around, stop her breathing to understand whether this sound which she had not heard for years now was real or was the building already playing around with her mind and sense of reality barely two minutes after she had entered it. It had been a clear ring. Clean and demanding in its metallic tone, not allowing anybody to ignore it or mistaken it for something else.

A deafening stillness fell into the barely lit building once again. She took another deep breath. Maybe only a trick of the mind. But then she heard it again. And no longer could she think it a trick of the mind. It was no longer the ring of a single phone. Somewhere nearby there was another one. And going by the echoes, there were many other phones throughout the building, all of them ringing at the same time. The ringing closest to her seemed to emanate from this foyer, right under the stairs in the corner.

She started towards it, now seeing that there was a small working space with a desk tucked right under the stairs. Right before it on the floor there were heavy marks of foot travel and dragging items, showing that there had once been several desks here. Smaller marks indicating desks and a reception bar while bigger ones indicated chairs being dragged on the floor day in and day out. She stood before the lone desk under the stairs and then she saw a black bakelite phone sitting on the ground.

The phoned ringed one more as she lifted it onto the desk. Handling the telephone, she saw that there was no wire coming out of it. It was not connected to anything and yet it rang once more in her hands. She placed it on the desk and lifted the receiver.

“Yes?” She asked, expecting an answer but only hearing crackles.

“Hello.” Through the crackles she could hear a barely audible voice of a young man. “Are you aware that in the third basement auditorium a lecture held by Likhachev is starting? On the connections between religion and illness of the mind?”

“Is there any education still going on in the Institute?” she asked with suspicion.

“Partly. Likhachev is a guest lecturer. Can you make it?”

“I’ll try.” She replied.

At the very moment she had said that, the phone went quiet. It started acting like a regular old telephone not connected anywhere. She dropped the receiver and turned to look at Jaan, still looking at her with a smile, handling a large ring of keys.

“Were you also asked to come and listen to the guest lecture by Likhachev?” He asked.

“This phone is not connected to anything.” She said, lifting the phone once again and looking it over from every angle.

“No. It is not.” Jaan said. “Being called to the lecture of Likhachev is an old thing that sometimes repeats. Sometimes there are also other calls being received by disconnected phones. Some of them even sound like real calls made from outside the town. This at least give an impression that it is some weird technical glitch.”

Phone signal traversing through free air, waking up phones connected to unconnected wires?” Mariann contemplated. “How old is that call to the lecture?”

“At least forty years of not more.” He said as they headed towards the staircase. “I studies and worked here a couple of years when I was young. By then it was already at least a couple of decades old. At that time, there were still students who liked to experiment with them. Trying to wrap the phones in tin foil and put them in metal boxes to isolate them from the electric fields. Sometimes they were also included in the initiations for the new students. Imagine being locked up in the room with 50 unconnected phones which then proceed to ring at the same time.”

“Do you know who is that boy who asks people to come to the third basement lecture hall?” the girl in black asked.

“In a way.” He gave a sigh. “At the beginning of the century, either on the first or the second decade, there was an accident in one of the basement lecture halls. A stone fell from the wall of the chimney and hit a student right on his head. It is said that he’s the one who keeps calling. Likhachev himself stayed in the Institute for more than just one guest lecture though. His photo is somewhere on these walls.”

Mariann lifted her gaze onto the portraits on the walls. Some were black and white photos, most were paintings.

“Stories also say that should you not promise to go to the guest lecture, you may not step into the third basement hall before the next phone call and giving an affirmative answer. Otherwise the young man will himself throw a brick at your head. Whether it is true or not, I cannot tell.”

“Is the Institute’s own phone system in working order?” She asked, as they ascended a floor.

“It is, but much in a similar way as that ghostly call. All the phones ring at once. Reportedly there is an old telephone exchange in the Substation. But the Substation is under the control of the Boys from the North and thus far not even us have been given the permission to enter it. And nobody want to bother building their own. Even for just the Institute. Everybody keeps getting by without it. This is the floor.”

They stepped on the worn dark parquet on the floor. He stopped for a moment, to raise his hand and scratch the back of his head.

“Right, to the left.” He said to himself.

“Where is that third basement hall located anyway?” She asked.

“Under the Northern tower. Under the Western tower is the first basement hall, which is truly… giant. Sometimes it seems it reaches under the streets and other buildings in the town. The second hall is under the Eastern tower. This is the smallest one of them, as the hallways to the faculties and biology and physics were also located there. The third lecture hall is located under the Northern tower. Before the medical faculty was created, the third lecture hall was the main hall for psychiatry lectures where several example procedures took place. The fourth basement hall was located under the Southern tower. There are also stories that in the basement there is another three story library, which acts as a redundancy for the one above ground, plus many unknown and lost tomes.”

“At the same time nobody knows exactly where it is located or where the key is?” Mariann asked.

“Nobody cares.” Jaan said. “That’s the main problem.”

Jaan unlocked the low door in the corner of the hallway and then crouched down to step in. She followed him. At first, nothing could be seen but then he clicked the lights on in the circular room. Not all of them lit up but there was still enough of them to look around in this low storage room filled to the brim with furniture. The main attraction was the ceiling of the room, concave like an upside down dome. From the edges it indeed seemed to be nearly 4 meters high. While in the middle it was less than one and a half. The diameter, probably about nine or ten meters. It looked like it was made of stone, black stone polished incredibly smooth, almost mirror-like finish. This was apparent as soon as she touched it and wiped the dust off of it. Her fingers could not find a single joint in the material anywhere she reached to touch. As if it was manufactured in one piece and lifted in place in one piece.

“It is local dolomite.” He said as he reached back to Mariann after circling the room. “And as you can probably see and feel, it is a single piece.”

“I should be thinking it to be impossible.” She said. “Of if not impossible then certainly unheard of in the past 300 years, especially in this corner of the world.”

Her gaze fell from the dome to the floor. “What lies underneath? The Red Hall?”

“The Red Hall is on the second floor so, in a way, I could say that yes, the forbidden Red Hall lies underneath it. But actually immediately below it lies the Hall of Taevaskoda, once known as the Black hall, but renamed to not be mixed up with the post-fire Red Hall. It is named for the fact that the walls of it have been laid in with the red sandstone from Taevaskoja.”

“What’s the department?” Mariann asked.

“Astronomy and cosmology.” He said, smiling, feeling the connection, even if he refused to consciously admit to it.

“Then there is some other place for us to go to.” Mariann said, she waited as Jaan locked the door again.

“I know what you’re thinking.” Jaan said as they walked back to the stairs. “But it is not possible. A Parabolic antenna under the whole town, a megalithic stone reflector or a radome with impeccable surface finish and a hall dealing in astronomy located just above and below two of the most mysterious halls in the history of the Institute. But it all combined cannot mean what it does.”

“You have said it before.” She said. “But it does not make the question arising from it all disappear.”

“What question?” Jaan asked.

“What lies on the first floor of the Western tower? What lies on the fifth floor of the Western tower and on top of it? And most importantly, is the First basement hall something more than what we currently know of it?”

“You’re thinking that all these things are somehow connected?” Jaan asked.

“There exists a kind of relation. The Western tower is unequivocally the center of both the Institute as well as the whole town. That why we might assume that it hides more than what is apparent on the outside.”

With a steady walk, they approached a door in the corner of the hallway, looking so familiar and yet so strange. The floor and walls were similarly laid in with dark wood, carrying a gloomy threatening air, just like on the floor above. Perhaps even slightly more, signifying that it was closer to the Red Hall on the second floor. The history of which radiated throughout the whole building and influenced the composition and looks of the materials within, even the transmittance of light and electromagnetic waves through space.

Jaan tried several old keys on the ring until he found one that fit the lock and opened the door.

Totally contrary to what they expected to see, a dark room full of of dusty, forgotten and obsolete astronomy equipment, instead it was an empty circular space, lit in bright lights. And of course the walls were laid in with large slabs of red sandstone. Instead of book shelves there were large curtains the color of red wine. Which could be drawn to cover almost all the walls. In the bright electric lights, the curtains looked almost luminescent, contrasting with the rough stone surfaces. What little windows there were, were covered in opaque black fabric, not letting in a speck of natural light.

In the middle of the room, there was a small hexagonal pillar about a meter in height. Hewn from a single piece of white stone. In the middle of it was a circular depression for a small sphere. It looked like an altar which had not yet received its sacrifice or a relic blessed with holy power.

“This is unexpected.” Jaan said. “Something is obviously going on that I am not aware of.”

Stop!” a strong-willed female voice sounded out from behind them. “Who are you and what are you looking for in here?”

Jaan and Mariann turned around, to see a frail young woman standing before them in a dress decorated with sections of white lace. She was staring at them over her glasses with a venomous gaze in her olive-colored eyes. Jaan knew this woman. This was the assistant who had been working on her thesis for the past three years and until now had had a friendly disposition towards him. They had greeted each other, brought coffee, made small talk.

“We were doing some research on the history of the Institute.” Jaan said.

“Professor Kotkas. Your obligations before the Institute are explicitly fixed.” She said in a strict voice. “These do not include offering tours to third parties to rooms with central importance to the Institute. Where did you even get the keys?”

“From the housekeeper.” He said. “What’s happened to you, Saara? I thought that you will leave as soon as you finish your dissertation?”

“I knew one set of keys was still somewhere around.” She sighed in a tired voice. “There is always one set of keys around somewhere even if all the sets have been accounted for. Yes. I had the intention of leaving but the board and the officials from the North made me an offer I could not refuse. And now I am the new head of the Institute. Everything going around here is my responsibility and things will change. Give me the keys, please.”

She stepped closer, revealing now that her hair had been tied into an old-fashioned bun. She grabbed the keyring from his hands and then removed six or seven keys before handing the set back to him.

“What’s going on in here?” He asked. “That’s something you can tell us, can’t you?”

“The Officials from the North and the Institute have agreed that the Hall of Taevaskoja will be the new home for a very valuable and important artifact, which strengthens the position of the Institute and it’s ability to carry out its research. The Devil Spark.”

“The Devil Spark?” He asked, not understanding the meaning of the words.

“The Devil Spark.” She repeated. “Please leave at once, the motorcade has already reached the building.”

“What’s Devil Spark?” Jaan asked as he left after Mariann.

“Are you familiar with the thing called the Demon Core?” the girl in black asked.

“Yes, I am.” He replied. “A subcritical mass of plutonium, two criticality accidents and then melted down.”

“Yes.” She smiled. “That’s Devil Spark. Originating from Yadernoprom, a subcritical mass barely the size of a woman’s fist. Only requiring a neutron reflector to go critical.”

“Why would the Institute need the core of a nuclear weapon?” Jaan asked.

“That’s a good question.” Mariann said. “A very good question.”