TIME : July 1, 2014 12:00 P.M. (0:00)
PLACE : The City At The Center Of The Universe
After Ovetta was through giving her status report, she asked for and got permission to take Hank on a guided tour of the city. Their first stop was an outside window that gave them a good view of certian parts of the city. The city seemed to glow with an intense white light which was in direct contrast with the blackness that surrounded it.
Hank was finally able to see how big the city really was. It was much bigger than any of the cities he had seen back on Earth with building after building extending as far as the eye could see. All the buildings were connected by a common foundation that supported the city. Hank guessed that there was a transportation system inside it allowing the population to move rapidly from building to building.
"How big is this city?" he asked knowing that he was viewing only a small portion of the massive city.
"It's roughly circular with a diameter of about 150 killometers," Ovetta explained sounding more and more like a tour guide. "The tallest building, located in the center, is about 2 killometers high. It can hold as many as 50 million people though out current population is just over one million."
"So most of the city is empty," added Hank suddenly realizing why he had been alone for so long.
"It's not really empty, just void of people," Ovetta corrected. "Every part of this city has something of some interest inside it, the hard part is finding it. Every day, somebody finds something of use. We never know what will turn up next."
"How did you get here?" wondered Hank. By now he could tell that they weren't advanced enough to have built the city themselves.
"More or less the same way you did," she replied. "Either we or our ancestors got trapped by the gravitational pull of the black hole and somehow managed to wind up here."
"Someone must have already been here," declared Hank. "None of us are capable of pulling someone out of a black hole."
"That's my guess too," agreed Ovetta. "but this is a rather large city. If anyone's hiding here, it will take generations to find him. We need more evidence before we start on a wild goose chase."
"Do you have any idea where we can find more evidence?" Hank demanded.
"Down below," replied Ovetta. "There is a maze of tunnels at the bottom of the city. Hardly anybody uses them expect people who want to avoid the general public."
"That sounds like as good a place as any," said Hank as the two of them made their way over to the elevator and whatever waited for them below.
TIME : 1:18 A.M.
PLACE : Elsewhere inside the City At The Center Of The Universe
Shawn, Peter, and Linda got out of the ship and stretched. Being closer, they had managed to get to the city well before the Ruler. The trip wasn't as bad for them as it was for Hank because they knew where to go and what to expect, but they were still shaken by the intense pressures of the black hole. If they hadn't have been pulled into the city, they would have surely been crushed.
Greatly relieved that they were once again on relatively stable ground, they began looking for the old man who had asked them to come. Surprisingly, there was no sign of him.
"Where is everybody?" stammered Peter. "All these buildings, yet no signs of life. It reminds me of Alpha Memory."
Alpha Memory was once the most powerful planet in the Milky Way until the majority of their population was suddenly wiped out. All that was left of their culture were the buildings they had left behind. The others agreed that the two places were remarkably similar.
Unfortunately, they didn't have time to stop and make comparisons. They had to find Hank, or at least the old man who had brought them there. Just when they were sure that the old man wasn't going to show up, his voice boomed out from a speaker directly above them.
"Your friend has gone underground!" he bellowed. "Normally it would take you days to find him, but, fortunately for you, I will give you direction. You should be reunited with him in less than an hour."
"Why won't you come to us and guide us in person?" demanded Peter.
"It would take too much effort," he snapped coldly. "Besides, I have other things to do. If you don't want my directions, you are more than welcome to look for him on your own. The choice is up to you. Take it or leave it!"
"It doesn't look like we have much of a choice," Shawn conceded.
"I knew you would see things my way," sneered the old man. "Now, the first thing you will need is a communicator. If you take the passage to your right and then take the second left, you will find an abandoned office. Open the top drawer on the right hand side and you will a portable communications device. It isn't all that impressive, but it will allow us to keep in touch."
Shawn and Peter stayed in the room while Linda followed the old man's instructions. Just as he said there would be, inside the top drawer on the right hand side was something that resembled a walky talky. Linda was sure that it was much more powerful than the walky talky she had used as a child, but it was just as easy to use. All she had to do to talk was press the little button on the side.
"I found it!" she shouted into the communicator to make sure it worked.
"I know," answered the old man, this time from the communicator instead of from the speaked keeping Shawn and Peter out of the conversation. "I have been watching you the entire time."
"How could you do that?" wondered Linda looking for some type of hidden camera, but finding none.
"Let's just say I have a few secrets that I'd prefer not to reveal at the current time," insisted the old man. "If you continue down the passage, you will find an elevator on your right. Go to the bottom floor and you will see a staircase leading down to the tunnels. Once you get there, I will give you further instructions. I will not speak to you again until you reach the tunnels."
"He makes sure he doesn't tell us any more than what is absolutely necessary," thought Linda. "It's as if there's something he's hidding from us and, in a city like this, there are plenty of things that can be hidden."
TIME : 1:26 A.M.
PLACE : Inside the tunnels
Linda was right. There were plenty of things that could be hidden inside the City At The Center Of The Universe, as Hank was starting to find out. He had been exploring the tunnels with Ovetta for over an hour without having the slightest idea where he was. If it weren't for the fact that Ovetta knew the way out, he would have started panicking a long time ago.
Being lost in the wearhouse, and then the building, was bad enough, but the tunnels extended for miles in all directions with no end in sight. He remebered that the city had a diameter of 150 killometers and figured that the same thing applied to the tunnels. If that was the case, it would take them about a week to reach the end. Hank longed for some sign of life as he rubbed his eyes and wearily continued.
Ovetta could see that Hank was getting tired and asked if he would like to stop and rest, but Hank insisted that he could go on a little further. He wanted to stop and rest, but there was no way of guaranteeing their safety. If they both fell asleep, they would be at the mercy of anyone or anything that happened to pass by them. Hank tried to find a place where that would give them at least partial protection, but the tunnels were all straight and narrow.
"Go ahead and get some sleep," Ovetta insisted. "I'll keep watch. I work on the night shift anyway."
Hank still didn't like the idea of resting out in the open, but he was too tired to argue. He laid back and closed his eyes and in a few minutes he was sound asleep. Ovetta sat down and kept an eye out for anything out of the ordinary glad that they were no longer walking around. She had been getting tired herself, but felt that as long as Hank could continue so could she.
Odds were that nothing would bother them, but she couldn't afford to go to sleep just in case something did appear. To keep herself occupied, she tried to guess how far they had travelled. It was over two killometers. They had made fairly good progress in only an hour, but it was only a small portion of the distance they would have to travel to reach the exact center of the city. If any of their questions could be answered, that was where the answers were.
Ovetta got up and streched. In the morning, they would have a long journey ahead of them.
TIME : 1:42 A.M.
PLACE : Elsewhere inside the tunnels
In spite of the fact that they had never been in the tunnels before, Peter, Linda, and Shawn were making even better progress than Ovetta and Hank. Of course, they had the old man to tell them where to go and knew that they would reach their destination in less than an hour. Ovetta and Hank had neither of these making it difficult to stay confident.
Over time the old man told them that Hank had met a friend and together they were trying to reach the center of the city. Later on, he told them the friend's name was Ovetta and gave them a brief account of what the two of them had done. As usual, he told them just enough to keep them interested, but not enough to make him loose control of the situation. He clearly remained the one in charge.
"You're on the right path," the old man informed them. "Keep heading in that direction and you'll eventually reach them. Remember, stay on the same path no matter how small it becomes. Turning left or right will only result in your confusion. This is the last time you will hear from me until you find him."
The others tried to protest, but it was too late. The old man had broken contact with them. "What do you think he's up to?" asked Linda.
"I'm not sure, but I'm positive he's responcible for Hank's disappearance," Shawn replied. "He wanted the four of us here for some reason."
As they talked, they continued down the tunnel getting closer and closer to Hank and Ovetta with each passing second. Their voices carried in all directions reminding them how alone they were. Other than the old man, they had no proof that anything else was alive in the city. It was enough to give anyone the creeps.
"Do you think he'll try to kill us?" stammered Linda.
"If he wanted to kill us, he never would have saved us from the black hole," reasoned Shawn. "I think it has something to do with me. As the leader of M.W.G.D., I would make a valuable hostage. He asked for me by name."
"He also knew Hank by name," added Peter. "so he must have been watching us for quite some time. The Ruler might have something to do with this."
"I doubt it," argued Shawn. "The old man sounds like he doesn't make deals with anyone, especailly the Ruler."
TIME : 2:00 A.M.
PLACE : The room with the speaker above it
The Ruler, Vondwin, and the two officers from Altair 7 arrived in the city and tried to take in their new surroundings. The Ruler had heard legends about the City At The Center Of The Universe, so he wasn't as surprised as the others. His first concern was to find Shawn and the other officers from M.W.G.D. Then, he would worry about the old man and the secrets that the city had to offer. The others were still getting used to the city, but they knew that the Ruler would order them to press on shortly. They just hoped the whole thing wasn't some cleverly devised trap.
"Welcome!" boomed a voice from above them. Even before they recognized the voice, they could tell that it could be none other than the old man who had requested for them to come.
"Where is Shawn?" demanded the Ruler.
"All in due time," insisted the old man. "They were in the same room you're in now less than an hour ago, so they shouldn't be that far ahead of you. However, I can't tell you where to go unless you have a communicator."
"But we already have communicators," Vondwin protested.
"To communicate with each other," he explained. "but not with me. Shawn and his friends are currently looking for one of their fellow officers. They are trusting me to guide them, but I can lead them into a position where it will be easy for you to ambush them."
"How do we know you won't do the same to us?" questioned Vondwin.
"You don't," he told them angrily. "It is up to you whether or not to trust me, but without me you will never leave this city alive."
Once again, the Ruler saw no alternative. They would have to follow his advise, but the Ruler vowed that the old man's days were numbered. He wanted to kill the old man even more than Shawn. No one could humiliate the Ruler the way the old man had and live.
One of the officers found a communicator in the second drawer of the same desk Linda had found hers in and guided them to the elevator leading to the tunnels.
Unknown to them, a fourth ship had been pulled into the city. The old man saw its only passenger get out of the ship and quietly follow the Ruler's party at a distance, but he didn't care. All that mattered to him was the meeting between Shawn's party and the Ruler's party, a meeting that would shape the entire galaxy for years to come.
TIME : 2:08 A.M.
PLACE : Inside the tunnels
Ovetta was getting bored with keeping watch and let her mind wonder back through the day's events. She was so distracted by her thoughts that she was unprepared when she heard someone approaching. There was no time to wake Hank without alerting them of their presence. She would have to face whatever was coming on her own.
The old man hadn't said anything to Shawn, Peter, and Linda for almost half an hour, so they were not sure what to expect. They were just as surprised as Ovetta was when they abruptly bumped into each other. Ovetta was unarmed and hopelessly outnumbered, but thought that she could save Hank by slowly backing away in the opposite direction.
"It's O.K. Hank is our friend," Shawn reassured her.
After that, Ovetta calmed down and gently began to stir her companion. Hank looked up at Shawn, Peter, and Linda in total surprise.
"How did YOU get here?" he inquired.
Shawn, Peter, and Linda took turns explaining about the old man, the black hole, the city, and finally guidance, and lack of guidance, he had given them through the tunnels. It took Hank a few seconds to soak it all in.
"It sounds like you've had almost as hard a time as I've had," Hank said at last. He, in turn, told them what had happened to him since he had disappeared into the black hole.
"You've had a rougher time than we've had," agreed Shawn. "Now let's see if we can find a way out of here."
"No one has escaped from this city in all our recorded history," Ovetta stated grimly. "We were headed to the center of this city to see if we could find out why Hank was brought here. The old man you described sounds like my boss's boss. He lives in the center of the city and keeps an eye on the entire city through millions of tiny cameras."
"Don't bother to try and find them, they're microscopic," she continued watching the others trying to find the camera. "I don't know his name or what he looks like, but I have heard his voice before. The next time he speaks, I'll tell you if I'm right or not."
"You are right," declared the old man. "and I want you to know you're fired. You've wasted too much company time trying to help total strangers. Next time, maybe you'll think twice about leaving your office when you're suppose to be working."
"I never liked working for you anyway!" Ovetta shouted back obviously fustrated about loosing her job.
"What did you do?" asked Peter. His timing was off, but he had to get as much information about the old man as possible. If they were ever going to leave the city, they would eventually have to confront him.
"I kept track of the inventory inside the wearhouse Hank was in," answered Ovetta already recovering from her sudden lack of employment. She figured that she might be able to leave the city with them making her job irrelevant.
"What did the old man do?" wondered Hank.
"He kept track of all the newcomers in our city and tried to get them to adjust to our way of life," replied Ovetta smiling because she knew more about the old man than she thought she did. "Personally, I think he went insane a few years back, but I didn't dare say anything until now."
"It doesn't matter if I've gone insane or not," interrupted the old man. "None of you can leave the city without my help, so you had better be nice to me and give me what I want."
"What do you want?" demanded Shawn.
"I want you to continue your journey to the center of the city," he insisted. "When you get here, I will meet you in person and discuss my demands. You will have to come here in order to leave the city and I can wait as long as you can."
The silence that followed told them that the old man was through talking and wasn't going to speak to them again until he felt like doing so.
"He's not one for lengthy conversations," sighed Peter.
"Looks like we have to continue," commanded Shawn. He handed Hank and Ovetta his spare phasers (he always kept spare phasers with him) and pointed strait ahead. "Ovetta, since you know this city better than we do, you should lead the way."
The five of them continued their journey to the center of the city not knowing that the Ruler's party was rapidly gaining on them. At the rate they were going, they would catch up in less than an hour.
TIME : 2:50 A.M.
PLACE : Still inside the tunnels
The Ruler never seemed to get tired. He demanded that the others stick to his rapid pace. Vondwin had passed the point of exhaustion a long time ago, but he dared not tell the Ruler. Even he, the Ruler's second in command, could not question the Ruler's orders. There was a rumor that the Ruler never slept and he was beginning to believe it. He had never seen the Ruler sleep in all the years he had known him. The Ruler's energy seemed to remain constant.
"Keep up!" ordered the Ruler. "We're almost upon them."
The old man gave the Ruler's party much more help than he gave Shawn's party since they had plenty of catching up to do. He would occasionally break off contact for no apparent reason to make sure they knew he was in charge, but he would always talk to them again after a sufficient amount of time had elapsed. There was too much at stake for him to break off contact for a long period of time.
Just when Vondwin felt like he was going to collapse, he heard voices in the distance. With a new source of energy, they quickened their pace determined to catch up. The Ruler insisted that they move in total silence. He didn't want to loose the element of surprise.
They were almost in phaser range when their path was blocked by some sort of barrier. They couldn't see it, but they could feel it and knew that it would be impossible to move. The Ruler tried to go back, but a second barrier blocked his path in that direction. They were trapped!
Since the barrier was transparent, they could see that the Ruler, Vondwin, and two Altair 7 officers were directly behind them.
"Run!" yelled Shawn, but it was too late. They were trapped too.
The area they were in suddenly lit up allowing them to see each other more clearly. One of the officers from Altair tried to shoot at them through the barrier, but his shots bounced off it harmlessly.
Both parties could hear the old man laughing in the background and knew they had been set up.
Copyright MCMXC, MCMXCIX
