Deana followed Jay’s instructions. She was to meet him behind a large greenhouse on the edge of campus, near the woods. She found Jay sitting on the ground, with his back to a matte gray utility box. His face was illuminated by the laptop computer in front of him.
"You’re late," he said, as she approached.
"Security was tighter than I expected at the front gate. Had to take the long way around."
They moved quickly through the winding pathways of the greenhouse, ducking behind tall racks of climbing ivy and dense ferns. The humid air was thick with the scent of damp soil, decomposing leaves, and the faint sweetness of blooming orchids. Jay stopped, and Deana crouched beside a cart stacked with empty planters.
Jay motioned for her to follow. "Stay quiet. There’s minimal staff on today, but we could still get caught. Come on."
They slipped past the misting stations and into a narrow stairwell that led to a basement storage area. The scent of plants gave way to the musty staleness of old fertilizer and rusting tools. Rows of gardening equipment, bags of soil, and dusty machinery filled the room.
A pair of workers walked through the space, chatting about an upcoming campus event. Deana and Jay pressed themselves against the wall, in shadow, until the voices faded behind them.
In the far corner, Jay found a hatch, which lead to the sub-basement. The heavy iron door groaned as he pulled it open, revealing a steep set of metal stairs descending down into the darkness.
They moved carefully, their footsteps echoing off walls lined with thick electrical conduits, old water pipes, and dusty air ducts. The infrastructure here was minimal—flickering lights, exposed wiring, and rusted grates. It hadn’t been used in decades.
Jay led Deana through a maze of passageways, and he constantly referred to the map on his laptop for guidance. Then they came to a corner, and Jay motioned for to Deana to stop. He carefully and quickly peered around the edge with one eye, then snapped back. Then he turned to Deana.
“Ok, this is it,” he said. “There’s a security door in there. It’s hard to see, designed to blend-in. But it’s high-tech with a biometric lock. Give me a minute.”
Deana waited for Jay to do his thing. After several minutes, she was about ask him what was taking so damned long. As she opened her mouth, Jay looked up and smiled.
“Ok, we can go in,” he said. “I spoofed the camera. I’m feeding it looped video of this room before we arrived.”
Jay went around the corner and Deana followed. At the end of the passage stood a reinforced steel door, devoid of markings except for a discreet, recessed camera mounted in the ceiling. The door wasn’t meant to be seen—set into the concrete with precision, as if the builders had designed it to disappear into the wall.
They were invisible to the camera, but the door’s lock, however, was another problem. A panel beside the door featured a complex biometric scanner. Jay exhaled sharply. “This might take a while. Sorry.”
Deana glanced over her shoulder. The silence here felt unnatural, like the building itself was watching them. The stale air carried a metallic tinge. "Make it quick!"
“Good thing the wireless network extends to this section. I need it for this.”
After several tense minutes, the scanner flickered green. Deana, startled, jumped back.
“Got it,” said Jay.
The door hissed, then slid open with a pneumatic whoosh.
“C’mon!” Jay motioned as he ran through the door. “Before it closes again!”
They entered a narrow staircase that led them deeper—past modern reinforcements, and past several concrete barriers—until they stood within the old bones of Eschaton University.
Jay opened his laptop and began to poke at it.
“What are you doing now?” asked Deana.
“Had to released the camera from the feed loop,” he said. “Don’t want security finding it like that. Also—“ A few more jabs at the keyboard. “There. Had to remove a log entry which showed the door had opened.”
“Smart,” said Deana. She was impressed. Jay really seemed to know what he was doing.
Jay closed the laptop, looked around and smiled. “Wow. Look at those walls!”
Deana looked. “So? Red brick. Nothing special.”
“These are the Civil War-era foundations. The walls here are ten-feet thick, designed to withstand the siege guns of the era. Well…resist them. Toward the end of the Civil War, most forts were earthen works—because, you know, rifled artillery could easily blast apart brick.”
“Fascinating.” Deana rolled her eyes. Then she looked at Jay and smiled. “Sorry. I know you love the history of this place.”
The brickwork stretched into the darkness, cracked and eroded in places where time and neglect had taken their toll.
A rusted iron gate hung open to one side, leading to a row of prison cells. Most were empty, their bars long since removed, but one held something unsettling—a skeleton still bound in shackles, slumped against the wall.
Deana swallowed hard. "Jesus."
Jay took a step closer, the beam of his flashlight illuminating a brittle scrap of parchment posted on the wall outside the cell. The ink was faded, but the writing was clear enough to make out:
Condemned for heresy, 1864.
The word ‘heresy’ sent a chill through Deana’s spine.
Further in, the passage collapsed into a jagged hole where the structure had been breached. Beyond it, a crawlspace yawned into the darkness.
Jay stopped to put his laptop into his pack. Then slung it onto his back. He took a deep breath, crouched down, and squeezed through. Deana followed.
Deana was half-way through when she got stuck in the passage. She fought the instinct to cry out, but the rest of her went into full panic. Her blood ran cold, and her vision began to narrow.
“You coming, or what?” said Jay from the other side.
“I…” said Deana. “I’m stuck!” She gave several more pulls, and finally something gave. Her shirt and pants tore in several places, but she was free. She climbed the rest of the way through. She stood up, turned and gave an emphatic double-middle-finger to the hole.
***
The old brick gave way to concrete, steel, and remnants of an era of mechanized slaughter. Desks with telegraph sets sat frozen in time, maps tacked to the walls and yellowed pages of The New York Times pinned beneath glass. The light here was intermittent—on steady for several minutes, then wavering or blinking on and off. Deana hated it. She found the effect disorienting.
Jay’s eyes gleamed with excitement. “This place is amazing. A total time capsule! In World War I, this part of Fort Highpoint was added and used extensively.” He gestured to the walls, covered in wartime headlines:
WAR IN EUROPE!
BERLIN SEIZED! KAISER FLEES TO HOLLAND!
GERMANY SURRENDERS!
WILSON’S LEAGUE OF NATIONS!
Propaganda posters peeled from the walls, urging young men to enlist or to buy war bonds. A Sears catalog lay open on a desk, pages brittle with age. An oil painting of Woodrow Wilson sat in the corner, its once-proud colors now muted beneath a thick layer of dust. Deana was particularly disturbed by a propaganda poster of the German Kaiser, who was represented as a spider. It said, “Don’t Talk - Spies are Listening.”
“Not bad for a hundred-year-old basement,” Deana muttered, but Jay was already moving ahead.
Deana and Jay reached a lower level, which was in complete darkness. They switched on their flashlights and looked around.
Jay crept forward with Deana close behind. Clearly there was something here Jay was wary of. He was wearing a pair of non-tinted sunglasses, like people wore at a shooting range.
There was an almost inaudible click, followed by the sound of something humming to life. To Deana, it sounded like a charging camera flash.
“Hold on,” Jay whispered. “Don’t move.”
“Shit,” Deana whispered back. “We’re not going to get blown-up, are we?”
“No,” said Jay. “But they’ll alert security if I don’t act quickly!” He opened his laptop open and began typing.
“Why? There’s nothing here.”
“There must be something,” said Jay, sounding distracted. “Here. Take these.”
He held out the glasses without looking at her.
“What?” said Deana. She grabbed the glasses and put them on. “I don’t—“ Then she saw them. Dim white lines, criss-crossing the floor. Hundreds of them.
“The floor here is lousy with laser trips.”
“I don’t know what that means…but I’ll take your word for it.”
***
Deana was laying on the floor, giving serious thoughts to catching a nap. Jay was sitting nearby with his computer on his lap. He’d been fiddling with the thing for over an hour.
“There it is,” said Jay. He hit a key, emphatically. “Boom!”
Deana heard several low clicks. She sat up and looked around. The white lines were gone.
“Took you long enough!” said Deana. She was more than a little annoyed.
“Sorry!” said Jay. “There’s a protocol. Had to follow the steps exactly.”
At the far end of the room there were steps down into a larger storage area. Wooden crates and metal storage boxes lined the walls. Some bore the logos of long-dead corporations. Others displayed something more disturbing—modern insignias, belonging to defense contractors still in operation today. Deana read off the names as the beam of her light illuminated them.
“Aventor Aerospace, Global Atomics, Molecular Dynamics, Rayon-Theta, Titan Maritime, Vorpal Industries.” Her face hardened. “These shouldn’t be here. What the hell is going on?”
“No idea,” said Jay. “They do seem out of place. Out of…time.”
“They look new,” said Deana. “Like they were put here recently.”
Deana pulled out a pad and pen and jotted some notes. “I have a feeling this is about to get a lot more interesting.”
“Maybe so,” said Jay. He moved the beam of his flashlight around the area. “Just so you know…this is officially the deepest I’ve ever been. This is the Undercroft.”
***
A rusted metal hatch was embedded in the floor, partially open. They pointed their flashlights down inside. It was a small, narrow room with unmarked wooden crates and an array of hand tools and other dull metal objects Deana couldn’t identify.
Jay lowered himself down carefully, and then raised his arms up to help Deana. The air was stifling here. It was hot and full of dust. Deana suddenly felt the need to get out of this cramped room.
On the wall nearby was a large, rusty metal handle, which looked like it opened the floor-to-ceiling sliding door it was attached to. Deana threw her weight into the handle, and the door reluctantly slid open with several loud screeches.
Deana and Jay carefully walked down the ramp on the other side of the door. They waved their hands at the billowing cloud of dust that had been stirred up. When their vision cleared, they realized they had just emerged from a train car. It had been left here with two connected cars, one fore and aft. All looked long forgotten, the paint on their sides faded into obscurity. But there was something else. Deana saw white chalk scrawled on the side of the train car:
If you find this, go get help. Do not follow me! - LEON
Deana exhaled sharply. “Leon was here.”
Jay looked at Deana. She could tell he was scared. “Maybe we should do what he says.”
“It’s too late for that,” said Deana. “Plus, we don’t know what we’re dealing with. He could be nearby and need medical attention. We have to keep going.”
They were in a cavern that seemed to be hollowed out of solid rock. The walls had vertical lines running down them, a tell-tale sign of dynamite blasting.
The train car they’d emerged from was part of a rail siding where other rolling stock was being kept. The ceiling of the cavern was very close here, but just past the tracks, the ground sloped downward. From here the cavern opened up into a wide open space.
Artificial lights had been strung across the top of the cave, and moored in place with pitons. Each projected wide, white circles on the ground below. Powerful construction lights were set up, illuminating the outer walls. In the periphery, stalactites and stalagmites added an interesting, yet sinister complexion to the place.
As Deana descended into the open area, she noted everything here looked temporary, unfinished. It was like a movie set, or a construction site. The floor of the cavern was covered in dirt, but the central area had been topped with light-gray stone and gravel. On the far side of the cave, against the wall, were two sets of concrete buildings. One set looked like living quarters. The other was more purpose built, like store fronts in a strip mall. Each section had a large glass window, so one could see everything in the room beyond. Most of the rooms were dark. One was lit, and one had a light which was intermittent.
In front of them, set some distance apart, were about ten trailers. Some had the wheels still on them, other had the wheels removed.
One of the trailers was more prominent. It was double-wide, made from two of the trailers hastily welded together, the seams left unpainted. On top, there was a short pole, upon which hung a faded, red flag a single white star.
Deana approached this trailer first, and was rewarded by more of Leon’s white chalk.
“HERE”, it said, printed in large letters on the side.
There was a placard next to the door, which said:
OSS - General William Donovan
Beside it, several clipboards were hanging. A sign below them announced:
Today’s Interrogation Schedule.
Deana and Jay entered the trailer and were amazed by what they found. It was another time capsule, but this time, from World War II. Just inside the door was a large painting of president Harry S. Truman. The walls were littered with framed newspaper pages, with headlines proclaiming:
WAR IS OVER IN EUROPE
VICTORY! JAPAN QUITS
GERMANY SURRENDERS
HITLER IS DEAD
The inside of the trailer seemed to be set up for multiple purposes. It was General Donovan’s office, having a very large wooden desk and comfortable-looking chair. It was a small briefing room, with twenty-or-so chairs with built-in desktops, like Deana remembered from elementary school. And it was a monitoring station, with an array of ten dark gray television screens, each marked with a number.
What the hell were they doing here?, thought Deana.
“I found this,” said Jay. He handed her several sheets of paper, which looked like they had been ripped out of a ringed notebook. “I think Leon left them for us.”
Deana read the pages in disbelief.
I’m leaving these notes for several reasons:
1. Posterity.
2. Breadcrumbs for myself. I don’t know how deep this rabbit hole goes, and I might need a trail to find my way out again!
3. If I run into trouble, they’re for anyone who comes looking for me.
This place is a revelation. It’s existence changes everything we thought we knew about the post-WWII era and who we thought had perished during the war.
I’ve spent about eight hours pouring over evidence in the camp, and the conclusion is undeniable. Everyone knows about Operation Paperclip, and some remember a similar operation in Japan debriefing members of Unit 731, but I don’t think anyone knows about this.
Project Revenant was a classified operation to fake the deaths of high-level Nazi officers, scientists and engineers. They brought them down here with the promise of a new, comfortable life…if they provided valuable information. They got very little of value from these men, but it looks like that wasn’t really their plan. They tortured most of them to death. I hate to say it, but that works for me.
The OSS (before they became the CIA) recorded hours of interrogations here. Hans Kammler, Adolf Eichmann, Heinrich Müller, Lorenz Hackenholt…and Hermann fucking Göring! It’s like the who’s-who of Nazi assholes who either went missing, or died in a way that prevented them from being identified. Very clever. They took most of the evidence with them. My guess is that it’s either been destroyed or buried in some secret vault under the Pentagon. Who knows?
Thank god I brought my camera with me. The photos alone will make me famous. There’s still blood stains and other…matter…they didn’t bother to clean up. I got it all recorded. I’ll get the Pulitzer for sure!
I’m moving on. I see light coming from a tunnel to the North, so I’m heading that way. I’ll leave more notes there. - Leon
“If you’re still alive,” said Deana to herself.
“What?” said Jay.
“Did you read this?” asked Deana. “It seems a little over the top.”
“I don’t think it is,” said Jay. “Look here.”
Jay was pointing to a button on a console near the bank of televisions. Leon had marked it with chalk.
PRESS!, It said, with an arrow added for emphasis.
“Well?” said Jay.
“Fine,” said Deana. “Do it.”
Jay pressed the button, and the screen nearest them came on along with a series of protestations from the old equipment. Static, wavy lines, frames flipping vertically, then slowly settling. A gray-scale image finally came into focus.
The image rapidly zoomed out. A man was seated in a chair. The chair was surrounded by pools of black—blood spatters. The blood wasn’t from the man, his face and body seemed undamaged. He was dressed only in an undershirt and boxer briefs. His uniform, of the expensive, Hugo Boss variety, was hung neatly on a hanger at the edge of the frame.
“Holy shit,” said Deana. “I know that guy! That’s Joseph Goebbels!”
“Yeah,” said Jay. “Not for long.”
A man came into frame. The person operating the camera was careful to keep his identity hidden, his head was always out of the shot. The man was putting on shiny leather gloves.
Goebbels looked up at the man, and said something inaudible.
His answer came in the form of a punch to the face, which deviated his septum. Blood flowed out of both nostrils and dripped down onto his shirt.
“Okay…” said Deana. “That’s about all I need to see.”
She exited the trailer and caught her breath. Jay came soon after.
“You missed the best part!” he said. “They brought out a drill and—“
“You’re not funny,” said Deana.
Jay smiled. “Well, you have to admit…the bastards deserved it.”
“I don’t think anyone deserves to be tortured,” said Deana. She looked at him with a severe expression. “Ok. Let’s get out of here. Leon said he was heading North. Let’s go find him.”
***
The train tunnel was completely dark, except for the single point of light ahead. It was faint at first, but as they neared the threshold, the brightness became mesmerizing. This was not the dim glow of ancient bulbs or flickering fluorescents. It was Sunlight.
They stepped forward, emerging from the darkness, and into a vast, impossible space.
The opening in front of them stretched for miles, an immense hollowed-out cylinder with towering buildings rising from the rock floor. At its apex, an artificial sun cast golden light over an entire underground cityscape.
Jay’s breath caught in his throat. “This is…” His eyes darted around the scene, and he shook his head. “How is this possible?"
“I don’t believe it,” said Deana. Her fingers tightened into fists. This couldn’t exist. And yet, here it was.
A secret metropolis, built deep beneath Eschaton University.
To Be Continued…
