Chapter Five

October 14th, 2042

The school day passed without any incident. Boring, to be honest, and looking at the clock every five minutes definitely didn’t help it go by any faster. I couldn’t help myself though. I was getting impatient. I’d heard from an acquaintance that there were some good parts to be found at the junkyard today, and I wanted to drag the guys down there as soon as humanly possible. So once the final bell for the day rang, I practically jumped out of my seat to get my stuff from my locker so I could meet Daniel and Jack in the courtyard.

“Well well, so you two actually decided to show up,” I didn’t think they would actually ditch me, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t poke a little fun at them.

“Well duh,” Jack shot back as he cracked open the can of coffee in his hands. “I wasn’t about to risk you texting me tonight and getting on my case about it.”

“You know me so well,” I shot a teasing smirk his way before glancing over at Daniel. Geez, he looked like hell. I couldn’t help but wonder what he was thinking about. Maybe he didn’t sleep well? “You get enough sleep last night Dan?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, yeah I’m okay,” He responded, but he wasn’t as quick with it as he usually was. Something was definitely going on in that head of his. The only problem is, I wasn’t exactly a mind reader. I had no idea what he could have possibly been going through. I’d have to remember to ask him more later, but I decided to drop the subject for now. He was already a little out of whack, and he didn’t need me pushing the boundaries.

“Great! Let’s get going!” I set my backpack down and pulled my scooter out of it, unfolding it to its full length while Daniel and Jack got out their skateboards. I led the way, kicking off and riding down the same way we always did. Three blocks away from the school, make a left. Another ten blocks, and the junkyard would finally come into view. It may have taken us almost half an hour with our smaller transportation, but it definitely beat walking, that’s for sure.

We parked our stuff near the back, making sure nobody was watching before I had Jack boost me up, jumping off his hand to grab the top of the fence and pull myself over. Daniel was next over the fence, and before he fully went over, he helped pull jack up so we could all make it over safely. I had given both of my compatriots a shopping list of what to find. Daniel headed to the north side to find scrap metal, Jack was to the east gathering wheels of roughly equal size, and I stayed to the south, trying to find computers or anything technological that had working circuit boards that I could rip out and take home with me. Hopefully, this would go over smoothly and we wouldn’t get caught. The last thing I needed was my parents finding out I was digging around in the junkyard again. I popped my headphones in and started my little shopping spree.

I completely lost track of time, but I’d gathered up one hell of a haul. I figured it would be a good time to call a meeting and see what the guys had found, but just as I took out my earbuds, I heard a loud crashing sound accompanied by a scream. Wait, was that Daniel I heard?

I rushed over toward the source of the sound, finding Jack already there, standing over Daniel laying on the floor, clutching his side in pain.

“Oh no! Daniel, are you alright?” I hurried over to his side and knelt down. What I saw was unmistakable. It was blood. “Oh jeez, okay, here, move your hand and let me take a look,” Luckily, he didn’t seem to feel like arguing with me. As he moved his hands away, I saw the tear in his shirt, but underneath..it was fine? He had a nasty scratch but there was no bleeding or anything. “What the--?”

“You took a nasty fall Daniel,” Jack reached out his hand to help him up. Daniel accepted and was soon pulled up onto his feet. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Daniel rubbed his side, still clearly feeling some pain. “What the hell did I fall on though?” That was a good question. What had he fallen on to cause something that bad? Something sharp, probably. At least that seemed like the obvious answer until he knelt down and started to brush away the junk. He stopped after a moment and went silent. “Is that a doorknob?”

What? I knelt down next to him to inspect it. He was right. There was a doorknob sticking out of the ground. What in the world was that doing there? I was going to suggest that we leave it alone, but it appeared Daniel had other plans, as he grabbed it and immediately pulled on it. Before I could actually say anything, the knob clicked, and a hatch swung open to reveal a staircase that led down to some sort of cellar.

“What do you think this leads to?” Jack asked with a curious glint in his eyes as he gazed down into the cellar.

“Well, there’s only one way to find out,” Daniel, always the type to shoot first and ask questions later, immediately started down the stairs without any thought behind his actions. I respected it, but damn it, now was probably not the best time. “Man, it’s dark down here.” His voice echoed out from below us. Jack and I looked at each other before silently agreeing we should follow him to make sure he doesn’t hurt himself.

At the bottom of the stairs, there was a doorway, with a door laying flat on the ground behind it. The hinges must have given out. Was this some sort of maintenance tunnel? That was the most logical conclusion I could gather, at least, until the tunnel that stretched out began to slowly descend further, opening up wider, and wider, until it came to a large, heavy metal door. On either side of the door there was a keypad, likely both of them had a code that needed to be entered for the door to open. It was like some sort of secret lab entrance.

“Look here,” Jack pointed out one of them. “The keypads have worn out numbers. This one here on the left has the numbers one, three, five, and zero worn out. This one here, has one, two, and five worn out. You think it’s some kind of code?” Jack punched in a code on it, tapping at the numbers. The light above flashed red and a buzzer sounded. That code clearly wasn’t right. He tried a few more combinations, but they all turned up nothing. I didn’t think we would be guessing the code any time soon, but if he wanted to try, I wasn’t going to stop him.

“Hey, let me try something,” Daniel chirped up as he approached the keypad. Jack moved out of his way to let him attempt. He didn’t seem to believe what he was doing was going to work, but he tried anyway. He put in the numbers, zero, five. “Sorry, it’s just that these digits are my birthday. I just think it would be funny if--” One, three.

The light on top of the keypad lit up green, and we all just sort of stared at it in stunned silence.

“Hell of a coincidence,” Jack finally spoke up after a few moments.

“Don’t suppose you know what this other one is then, do you?” I questioned him, mostly teasing, but with his luck he could probably figure it out. “If that one over there is four digits, then this one probably is too, but only three numbers are worn. So, one of them has to repeat, right? That only leaves us with so many combinations. Maybe we can brute force it.”

It took us a little while of trying, but eventually we were able to get the code. One, two, one five. Daniel looked even more perplexed by that number. I wonder what he was thinking just then.

But we didn’t have time to question him, as suddenly lights flickered to life and the door slowly, squeakily began to open, sliding off to the sides to reveal some sort of..

Well, it could really only be described as a secret lab. Screens lined the walls, tools were strewn about all over the floor, random pieces of tech and various other items were scattered all over the place. It was like someone grabbed a bunch of stuff in a hurry and left behind whatever they had deemed unnecessary. None of the computers were up and running, as it seemed the power was out at the moment. There had to have been some sort of generator around here.

“Looks like we hit a gold mine,” Jack commented after a few moments of just looking around the lab in a sort of stunned silence. “Bet you could take all sorts of stuff from here. Looks like this place hasn’t been touched in a couple decades, I’m sure whoever was here before won’t miss it.”

“No,” I wasn’t completely listening to what he was saying, all I knew was I didn’t want to take anything from this place. This was something way better than a place to pick up spare parts from. If I could find a generator that powered this place, who knows what sort of cool information I could pick up? I couldn’t let this go, I had to find that generator. I took a flashlight out of my bag and flipped it on. “I’m gonna take a look around. You two try not to break anything while I’m gone.”

Even with the flashlight, it was hard to see where I was going. This place was huge, and no doubt it had been abandoned for at least a couple decades, like Jack had said before. But I could only imagine what I could find if I got the power working. That was what drove me forward. Fumbling my way through the limited visibility of the flashlight shining the light in front of me, I found some sort of back room. I almost tripped over a power cable on the floor. Nice! That must have connected the generator to the main power. I lifted it up and pushed it into the socket, before pulling the lever on the generator. It slowly powered up, whirring to life and within the next few minutes, the lights slowly started to flicker on, letting us see the mess the lab had become in full light.

But what was even more interesting was the computers. The big screen on the wall flickered life as the computer booted up. We all stared in amazement as a massive map of the city popped up. Dots started to litter the screen, in seemingly random places across the city. Some of them were labeled “PT”, whatever that meant. I was the first to approach, tapping the keyboard on the desk, and the display changed to camera feed. There must have been dozens of cameras, placed in different points all over the city. What was all this? It had to have been some sort of surveillance, but what were they surveying? Who owned this lab?

What had we just stumbled upon?