The Lost Level (16 page)

“Unbelievable,” I muttered, and then laughed aloud at the image.

Kasheena turned around to face me. “Did you say something, Aaron?”

“Oh, it’s nothing. I’m just…amused. Of all the things I’ve seen
here so far, this is definitely the strangest.”

But I was wrong. The valley of socks wasn’t the strangest thing I’d
seen in the Lost Level. What came after the valley was.

When we began hiking again, I felt reinvigorated. The blisters
and aches didn’t bother me nearly as much. The extra pair of socks I was
wearing acted as a cushion. I walked in luxury.

We exited the valley and started across a wide, forested plain.
The trees here were younger and smaller than those of the previous forest, and
thick tangles of scrub grew between them, slowing our progress. Most of the
vegetation was harmless, but I did spot a few patches of razor grass, and Bloop
cautioned me with hand signals not to brush up against a particularly noxious–looking
vine with waxy green leaves and thumbnail–sized thorns. Kasheena led us along
the outskirts of the woodland until she found a narrow, winding game trail. We
followed that into the trees. As we walked, I noticed again how quiet and
standoffish Kasheena seemed to be.

“Are you sure there isn’t something wrong?” I asked. “Have I done
something to offend you in some way? If I have, I’m really sorry.”

Sighing, she stopped walking. Bloop and I halted, as well. Bloop
took advantage of the delay and urinated on a nearby tree stump.

“It’s not you, Aaron.” Kasheena stared at the ground, unable to
meet my eyes. Her voice was a low, sad murmur. “It is my people. I am worried
how some of them might react to you upon our arrival. And as we draw nearer to
my home, that worry is growing.”

“That’s okay.” I smiled. “I can make friends easy enough. I mean,
I’m not an extrovert by any means, but I can be charming. I’m sure Shameal will
like me, at the very least. We share similar interests, after all.”

“It is not Shameal I am worried about. You are my suitor now.
There are other men among my tribe who wished to fill that role. They may take
umbrage to the fact that an outsider has lain with me. I am fearful as to how
they might react. Some might wish you harm.”

“I can handle myself, Kasheena. You really don’t have to worry
about me.”

She put her hand on my cheek and stared into my eyes for a long
moment.

“Yes,” she said. “I know you can handle yourself. I just fear…the
trouble it could cause, even if you are only defending yourself.”

“Well, let’s just cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Kasheena frowned. “There are no bridges between here and my
village. At least, not along the route we are taking. There is grassland and
hills once we leave the forest.”

Before I could explain, Bloop growled with impatience. Kasheena
responded to his mood, and we moved on.

Soon, we entered a clearing. I noticed right away that the
clearing was not a natural formation. The grass and trees had been cut in a
straight line running through the forest. The weeds and scrub were barely ankle
high, and the trees had been reduced to stumps. I wondered how often it was
maintained and who was doing the landscaping. The formation was about the width
of a one–lane road, and indeed, that’s what it seemed to be, although it wasn’t
paved, nor was there any sign of wheel ruts in the ground.

“Someone made this,” I said. “Where does this road go? Who built
it?”

“I do not know where it leads,” Kasheena replied, “but I have
always been told it was built by the same ones who made the statue.”

“The statue?”

“Yes.” She pointed. “The one I mentioned earlier.”

I let my gaze follow to where she was pointing. A shiny steel
post stood several yards away, just on the far edge of the clearing. The post
was about four feet high. Attached to the top of it was a metal, canary–yellow
mailbox, complete with a little red flag to put up and down, indicating whether
or not there was mail inside. Between this odd sight and the valley of socks,
my incredulity finally reached the breaking point.

“You have got to be fucking kidding me.”

Kasheena and Bloop were both puzzled by my outburst.

“It’s a mailbox,” I continued. “It’s not a statue. It’s a
goddamned mailbox!”

“You sound agitated, Aaron.”

“That’s because I
am
agitated! It’s a mailbox. It has no
purpose here, and yet there it is. Somebody mounted it on that pole and stuck
it in the ground along this pathway. Not to mention that somebody is cutting
the grass here on a regular basis. So, who is responsible for all this? Because
I’m fairly certain that the mailman or Globe Package Service aren’t making
deliveries here in the Lost Level.”

“I don’t understand.” Kasheena’s brow furrowed. “You are upset
with me….”

“It’s okay.” I held up my hands in mock surrender and lowered my
voice. I did my best to smile, but acid was churning in my stomach, and all I
managed to do was grimace. “I’m not upset with you, Kasheena. Not at all. I’m
just…I’m tired. I’m tired, and my head hurts. That’s all. We’ve been walking
for what feels like forever. I suggest we make camp here for a while. We don’t
have to sleep. I just want to rest a bit.”

Kasheena nodded. “We will do so just beyond the tree line. It is
not safe to camp out here in the open.”

We made camp and ate a small meal and talked for a while,
watching the sun hover motionlessly overhead. I yawned in mid–conversation and
realized that despite what I’d said before, I needed to do more than rest. I
needed sleep. Kasheena agreed that she could use some herself. We decided to
take a nap and then continue on our way to her village. After a brief
discussion, utilizing hand signals, we conveyed to Bloop that he should take
watch and wake us when he was ready to renew the hike. Our furry companion
agreed. I stripped off my armor and weapons, except for my dagger. Then, clad
only in my underwear, jeans, and socks, I curled up next to Kasheena and
promptly fell asleep, so exhausted that I was barely conscious enough to kiss
her forehead before drifting off.

I dreamed of home, and like all dreams, it was a mish–mash of the
mundane, the bizarre, and the insightful. In the dream, I was back in my old
apartment, sitting on my bed, but the opening ritual hadn’t worked, and there
was no doorway into the Labyrinth hovering before me. I was sending text
messages to everyone I knew, but I was typing them while pretending to be the
character Mr. Darcy from Jane Austen’s
Pride and Prejudice
. People were
responding to me with confusion, but when I then told them it was me, they didn’t
respond at all. I sat there on my bed, wondering if I would have become a
different man had I discovered Mr. Darcy before discovering Han Solo, and then
decided that I was better off. Mr. Darcy couldn’t make the Kessel Run in less
than twelve parsecs. Suddenly, Bloop was there in the room with me, but he was
wearing a baseball glove, a cowboy hat, and smoking a cigarette.

“You don’t belong here anymore,” he told me. His voice was a
rich, deep baritone.

“You can speak,” I gasped.

Bloop nodded. “Here, I can. But I don’t like it. It’s not
natural.”

Now I realized that we were no longer in my apartment. Instead,
our surroundings had morphed into my childhood bedroom.

“You don’t belong here,” Bloop repeated, exhaling cigarette
smoke. It curled around his head, forming halos that rose slowly to the
ceiling.

“But this is my home. This is where I grew up. I lived here.”

“Not anymore.” Bloop shook his head, then walked over to my
bookshelf and perused the volumes. “You’re like me now. You don’t belong here.
Come home.”

“I
am
home.”

“No, Aaron. You’re not. Neither am I. We can’t go home again. We
can never go back. They won’t let us.”

“Who won’t let us? The Anunnaki?”

Bloop took another drag off his cigarette and shook his head. “No,
the Anunnaki are trapped, just like we are. They can’t go home, either.”

“Then who are our captors?” I asked. “Who’s preventing us from
leaving the Lost Level? Is it the Greys?”

“Not exactly.”

“Not exactly?”

“Not exactly,” he repeated.

“Bloop, I don’t understand.”

“The Greys are but servants.”

“Servants to who?”

My mother called up from downstairs, informing me that dinner was
ready, but in the dream, she didn’t sound like my mother. She sounded like my
third grade teacher.

“It is time for us to go,” Bloop said, but now the cowboy hat and
baseball glove he’d been wearing were gone, replaced by a pair of round
spectacles. Wearing them, Bloop looked a little bit more like the Marvel Comics
character the Beast.

“Hang on,” I replied, rising to my feet. “I want to tell my mom
goodbye, at least.”

“You won’t be able to.”

“Well, then I should pack some things first.”

“You can’t do that. You can only return with what you brought
with you. They’ll deliver everything else.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Look at the moon.” Bloop pointed at my window.

I moved over to it and parted the blinds. A full moon hung in the
sky, whitish–yellow and seemingly swollen. As I watched the moon, it blinked.
At first, I thought maybe it was me that had blinked, but when the moon did it
again, I gaped.

“They are watching,” Bloop said over my shoulder. “From the sun.
And from the moon. They are always watching us. That’s what they do. The sun
and the moon are both eyes.”

He placed his furry hand on my shoulder. I felt his claws against
my skin, even through the fabric of my shirt.

The sensation increased as I woke to find Bloop shaking my
shoulder, rousing me for my turn at watch.

“Buddy,” I murmured. “You’re just as exasperating in real life as
you are in my dreams.”

If Bloop understood me, he gave no indication. Instead, he knelt
on his haunches, watching me until he was certain that I wouldn’t fall back to
sleep. Then, he curled up several feet away from Kasheena and closed his eyes.
As it turned out, Bloop had been exhausted, too. His tail twitched a few times,
and then he lay still, snoring softly.

I sat for a while, watching them sleep, and pondered the meaning
of my dream. Unfortunately at the time, I couldn’t make sense of it. It wasn’t
until many years later that I would understand the ramifications of it all.

Eventually, I pulled on my boots. Armed only with my dagger, I
rose and padded away in search of some bushes to relieve myself behind. I had
just finished and was zipping my pants, when I heard the distinct sound of
hydraulics. They were quite similar to those of the robot we’d seen fighting
the Tyrannosaurus, albeit quieter. Whatever the source of the noise, it was
drawing closer. I perceived it to be coming from the nearby road.

I glanced back at my sleeping companions and then back toward the
road. Deciding not to wake them, I crept through the undergrowth. If I saw any
reason for alarm, I’d rush back and rouse them. I reached a tangle of vines
within reaching distance of the mailbox and watched as another robot came into
view. This one wasn’t nearly as large as the one we’d seen fighting the
dinosaur. It was about the size of a compact car and box–shaped. Its grey metal
hull was splattered with mud and spots of rust. Spelled out on its side in
large, stenciled, block letters were the words ‘PROPERTY OF GLOBE PACKAGE
SYSTEMS – USPDU 222–321–412’ and some smaller lettering that I couldn’t make out.
A small, dinner–plate sized satellite dish rotated slowly atop the robot,
nestled between two small poles that looked like lightning rods or antennae of
some kind. The construct had no wheels or treads and hovered about twelve
inches off the ground. Beneath it, I saw leaves and other debris blown to the
sides of the road. Whatever the propulsion system, it was obviously pushing out
air. That explained why the road appeared swept clear, as I’d noticed earlier.

The thing cruised along until it reached the yellow mailbox.
Then, it slowed to a stop and hung motionless in the air. Flashing lights
appeared on both its front and back. Inside its shell, I heard machinery
running. As I watched, a small hatch opened in its side, and a mechanical arm
popped out. The robot opened the mailbox, verified that there was nothing
inside, and then the arm slipped back into the hull. Gears whined as the hatch
closed again.

To this day, I still can’t explain why I chose to do what I did
next. As I sit here in this abandoned school bus, reflecting back on my time in
the Lost Level and all of the things that have happened to me, my actions that
night still perplex me. (I say night with irony, here in this land of perpetual
day). I’ve made many mistakes during my life as an inter–dimensional castaway,
and there are several of them that I wish I could take back, even though they
seemed like the right thing to do at the time. But this one just confuses me.
Maybe my actions were spurned by familiarity or curiosity. Maybe it was because,
unlike our previous mechanical encounter, I could read the lettering on this
robot’s hull. It was something from my world, or a world similar to mine,
albeit from the future. I recognized the name Globe Package Services, of
course. If you’re from my level, I’m sure you do, as well. In my time, they
were the biggest package delivery company in the world and just one division of
the massive Globe Corporation, an international conglomerate with so many
subsidiaries and special interests that I doubt even the company’s shareholders
were aware of them all. Private security, computers, oil drilling,
entertainment, fiber optics, medical technology and research, communications,
publishing, food production, mining—they seemed to have a hand in everything,
an infinitely–tentacled hydra of industry and finance. Some said they were too
big. Indeed, in my time, there were conspiracy theorists who said that Globe
secretly controlled the world—that they were the Illuminati and the New World
Order all rolled into one. I wasn’t sure about any of that, but judging by the
robot, they had apparently taken over from the postal service at some point in
the future.