Chapter 50

Campus plan of the University in the area of Yellow Mall.

Time: Thursday, February 14, 2019 3:10 PM

Fatima’s team walked as two pairs across 400 meters of an eighteen-sided enclosed park. They had just exited the southern dorm areas and were heading north to administration building. Fatima and Hannah in the lead and they took a moment to admire the view. It was very sunny day, and the yellow buildings on their right that held the classrooms and labs were bathed in the pretty orange sunlight of late afternoon. The stone walkway under their feet was covered with mushy snow. There had been some melting earlier in the noonday sun, and it was not quite cold enough yet to refreeze.

With the planet’s fast orbital period, the spring equinox was only fifteen days away, and as she stomped through the snow, Hannah took a moment to reflect on the remarkable transformation they were about to experience. They were at the beginning of a period when the world would go from eight hours of daylight in a day to sixteen hours in less than five weeks.

“You know Hannah,” Fatima said quietly as she pulled Hannah out of her climate daydream, “I don’t think Party #6 ever came this way.”

Hannah looked about the campus one last time. They had discovered a compact university setting packing into an array of a dozen large hexagonal buildings surrounding a core open space of seven hexagons, with each hexagon the size of their home complex. The campus appeared completely functional, including a row of three hexagon dorms to the south which they had just finished exploring. Towards the northeast were impressive collections of classrooms and lab areas.

Adjacent to the dorms was a hexagon of luxuriant dining and common areas to the east and a fully equipped exercise area to the west which included running tracks at ground level and a magnificent Olympic-sized pool below. The center hexagon on the northern face was an office complex that could serve as an administrative area. Finally, the three hexagons to the northwest formed a very extensive hospital area. The university could easily serve as a very respectable regional teaching hospital in any city on Earth.

They had found the campus earlier this morning after traveling about four kilometers southwest of Yellow Brick’s home complex. The buildings were extensive, and it had taken them the rest of the day to realize the campus was deserted, or more precisely, the two floors above ground and the first floor below ground were deserted. Fatima’s team had discovered numerous doors that suggested one or more deeper underground levels, but unfortunately they were all double-door airlock-type portals, and it was part of their core mission plan not to use what could easily be one-way passages.

Hannah turned and nodded in agreement to her leader’s earlier remark. “Yes. The place does seem absolutely pristine.”

“Oh, it’s not that. The servos would have eliminated any trace of their passage. But I’m trying to imagine what being in Party #6 was like. It was nine men and nine women. If they had come to this campus ... Well, just look at the place! This isn’t a Castle Commonwealth shopping mall! And you can’t possibly confuse it with residential housing either. If the couples came here, they would have been forced to realize something completely bizarre had happened.”

Hannah nodded again. “In which case they might turn back and attempt to return to Yellow Brick’s home complex.”

“You think so? Unless they left somebody behind, there would be no way to get back in. The servos don’t allow unattended doors to be propped open.”

Hannah shrugged. “But they wouldn’t know that.”

“True. But if that’s the way it happened, afterwards I would have come back here. There’s shelter here and lifetime of food. Except for Mall access, everything we have at a home complex is here. And once they recognize that, I can’t see them abandoning the campus again, not all of them anyway.”

“Ah, I see your point. Yes, they would try to explore, but this would be too good a home base to abandon. So what’s the conclusion? Perhaps they left through the lounge after all. That was my original guess, remember?”

Fatima nodded. “Yeah, I sure do.” It had been a major point of discussion over the last several days. Yellow Brick’s home complex joined its hexagonal perimeter at the southeastern vertex, and some preliminary short-range exploration had previously revealed that the exit paths from the first floor library and the second floor lounge did not connect with each other for at least three 100-meter perimeter segments. Fatima had gambled that since Party #6 had discovered the library elevator, they probably also left their home complex through the first-floor exit. But she was beginning to rethink that logic.

Allison and Heather quickened their pace and caught up with them. “Well,” commented Allison, “at least we solved one mystery. The infrared on Mark’s satellite images, it’s from the botany lab here.” They were half through with their walk through the enclosed park. It the very center stood a very small six-sided gazebo, and the group walked through it rather than around.

While inside, Allison took a moment to study the distances on the map she had been making since the expedition started. She called out, “I’m estimating this gazebo is fourteen kilometers east and three kilometers north of Hex Hall.” She was referring to the geometric center-point of the Great Hexagon.

Fatima nodded as she and her team continued north. Fatima looked at the sky and then at her priceless Leophone. They had about an hour till sunset. Toshi had volunteered to bike to their home complex and open the outside door to the library for them at 4:15 PM. She might have already started her bike trip.

The team might explore a few more line segments along the way, but it was time to head home. Fatima sighed. They had learned a few things today but had found no trace of Party #6. They had not even found an elevator as Mark’s party had done, and it was the home complex of Yellow Brick that could use one the most.

When they reached the southern vertex of the admin building, Fatima quietly held the door open for her team. The opposite northern vertex of the admin segment was the only entrance and exit they had found into the campus that they were all calling Yellow Brick University.

“What do you want to bet the second sub-level is full of elevators?” asked Allison as they walked along an office corridor. “It would be insane to have this office building be the only entry point to the university, especially for the hospital.”

“Not any more insane that the underground malls,” countered Heather. “There are insanely few exits there. I sometimes feel claustrophobic when I’m down in the Mall.”

“I think I agree with Allison,” said Hannah. “I wouldn’t mind testing a few of the sub-level portals in the hospital.”

Fatima shook her head. “Our mission parameters are correct. Look what happened to Madison. We’re not going to risk one-way passages, especially without clear evidence that Party #6 had passed through.”

“But the servos remove that kind of evidence!”

“I know, Hannah,” Fatima replied with a sigh. “I know.”

Meanwhile, approximately fourteen kilometers to the southwest and more than 1500 meters below...

Overhead view of the underground world showing the path of the Mississippi. The river runs from south to north. Entrance room is at the eastern end of the south wall.

“How are we looking?” Jada asked Madison who was standing on a high rock at the edge of the eastern shoreline and making notes in her log.

“Not too bad,” replied Madison as she sighted her laser again to confirm her measurement. “I’m reading we’re about 2.7 kilometers east of the longitude centerline and just about five kilometers south of the latitude centerline. Along the river, we’ve come twenty-one kilometers since the boat house.”

Madison handed her log to Jada for inspection. Jada looked down at a very professional looking map. “Great work, Maddy,” she said quietly as she studied the map. “This is really excellent.”

Madison gave an odd smile, a combination of the pride in her skills with a bit of sheepishness mixed in. “Emily spent days with me on the Leophone while I was waiting for the kayaks. She taught me how to do this.”

Jada nodded and returned to her duty of scanning their temporary landing spot. The landscape was stunning in its beauty and bio-diversity. And underneath the appreciation lay a nagging sense of confusion. Was this a pure Earth environment? If she had to guess, Jada would say yes, but she lacked conviction. The forest seemed ... She couldn’t put her doubts into words. She surveyed the camp’s perimeter again. The forest looked wilder than normal somehow. Jada shrugged and thought, “And what am I comparing it with? Wilderness in national parks? Face it, Jada, this is what a truly pristine forest is supposed to look like.”

They were camped on the eastern shoreline of the Mississippi, at a spot where the river was about to run almost due north for the next 700 meters. Over the course of the day, they had followed a great sine wave path as the river turned and head northwest for many kilometers before finally turning and heading back east. Their campsite now was in a particularly advantageous spot. Heading east from their location, there were only 600 meters of forest and then another 600 meters of foothills before the eastern wall of the cylindrical sky.

Mandy and Tom had been gone for the last hour, carrying their high-resolution digital cameras and binoculars as high into the foothills as they could. Jada and Madison had made a similar trip about five hours ago, at the western bend in the river, leaving Mandy and Tom to guard the precious boats while they climbed high in search of the lost party from White Mall. So far absolutely nothing had been found to indicate the group ever came this way, but Jada was far from discouraged. The territory was vast.