The Last Great Adventure (pt. 7)

Missed the previous parts? Start at the Beginning or Go Back One Part

After checking inside a few of the now opened buildings, Teddy and Wes came away disappointed. Each room of each chamber was empty. No furnishings or artwork, no evidence that the rooms had ever been used, had even been designed for a use. 

“It doesn’t make sense,” Wes said repeatedly. “Why would these mole people have built all this if they never moved in?”

“Maybe it’s that they eventually moved out?” Teddy offered.

“To where?” Wes asked, his voice sharpened to a dagger-like point.

“Look, it’s no use snapping at me. Do you want to keep searching or not?”

Wes felt sheepish. “You’re right. I’m sorry. This is just such a weird letdown after everything else. Imagine if Edmond found Faria’s treasure but all the chests were empty.”

Teddy stared at Wes. 

Wes chuckled. “Yes, I read the book you suggested, OK?”

“You liar! You watched the movie, but I’ll take it.”

“No way! I’m offended you would even suggest that!”

Teddy turned away to continue down the street. Over his shoulder, he remarked, “In the book it’s just a single chest of treasure.”

“Only you would remember such a tiny detail!” Wes said through laughter. He followed Teddy.

“So what did you hope to find?” Wes asked. The hallway through which they walked began to widen.

“The funny thing is, I was terrified about what we would find,” Teddy confessed. “I guess I wanted to find some cool tech or something. But I was scared we’d come across a security system or resident angry that we broke in. What about you?”

“Oh, I’m just along for the ride.”

Teddy scowled. “I don’t think I buy that, but OK.” 

They came upon a large, closed door, the first that barred their way since reactivating the statue in the plaza. Etched into the metallic door was a symbol. A thick vertical line with a thinner, flowing line gently coiled around it.

“A caduceus,” Wes whispered. 

“Technically, no,” Teddy said. “That’s a Rod of Asclepius.”

“Dammit, Ted! I felt so smart for recognizing that. You couldn’t just let me have it?”

“A caduceus has two serpents, like a double helix, and usually wings at the top. The only reason I brought up the difference is that it’s pretty recent that the two have kind of melded into a single meaning. In ancient times, the caduceus would have been more associated with merchants and travel than with medicine.”

“Have I told you what a huge nerd you are?” Wes cocked his head to glare at Teddy.

Teddy chuckled. “Yeah, on occasion. But my point stands. In a place this old, the difference would be important.”

“Wait, how would these ancient American mole-people even know about the—” Wes paused and cocked his head to look at Teddy for approval as he finished speaking, “—Greek? gods?”

“Yeah, Asclepius was the god of medicine and healing in the Greek pantheon. And that is a question I have no answer for. I mean, I guess maybe it’s supposed to depict something else.” 

“It looks pretty obvious to me. It’s a snake hugging a stick.”

Teddy began to speak under his breath as he talked himself through the find. “Ok, so the Hebrews had the nehushtan, so there’s precedent for multiple ancient cultures developing similar symbols. But both the Greeks and the Hebrews were in the Old World, and pretty close to one another. Their cultural overlap makes sense. But here? How would information like this cross such a divide. Unless that was part of this culture’s tech? Would it be possible that maybe the Greeks and the Hebrews got their stories from here?”

While Teddy mumbled on, Wes approached the door and began to run his fingers over its surface. As he did so, two small indentations appeared in the otherwise solid metal. Wes placed his hands into them, and the tip of the snake’s tail began to glow with a faint blue light. 

“Teddy, check it out.”

“What did you do?”

“I just touched it.”

The light traveled slowly up the body, and then filled the rod from top to bottom. Once the entire insignia shone blue, it began to blink. A thin line bisected the door and the two halves began slowly sliding apart. Instead of air escaping, the sealed doors hissed with the intake of air, tugging at Wes’s clothing as he stepped away.

Wes walked into the room. Inside were tables arranged into rows and tubing that hung from the ceiling. In the center of the room, an obelisk-like structure began to glow. Wes approached it, and the color shifted from blue to red. 

Gingerly, Wes reached for the pillar. He could not articulate why, but he knew he had to touch it. A thrumming, bassy vibration rumbled the floor. 

The moment his hand made contact, metal bands shot from a nearby table, binding Wes tightly, reeling him to lay prone. Teddy shouted and lunged to protect his friend, but Wes’s wrists and ankles were immovable behind the ratcheting cuffs.

“Oh god, oh no! Teddy, what’s happening?” Wes’s muscles bulged as he strained against the mechanized trap. “Help me, Teddy!”

“I’m trying!” Teddy began to weep as he tugged on the restraints. “I can’t get them off you,” he cried.

“Teddy, please. Please! You have to—” Wes’s words morphed into a howl of pain. 

Icy fear sat on Teddy’s chest. “No, no!” He could form no more coherent thoughts. He covered his ears to block out the shrieks of his friend and then huddled onto the floor, helpless to stop whatever procedure had been started.

After a few moments, Wes fell silent. Still. The bands holding him to the table retracted into seamless closures. 

Teddy continued to sob. He forced himself to open his eyes, though tears ruined his ability to see. He stood and approached the body of his friend. His chest did not rise and fall, so Teddy reached to check his pulse with a trembling hand.

Wes gasped for air and his eyes shot open. Teddy screamed and fell backward. Wes looked around frantically.

“Teddy!”

“Wes!”

“I’m alive!”

“What happened? Are you OK?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.” Wes repeated the phrase a few more times as his brain scrambled to make sense.

“We need to get out of here,” Teddy insisted.

Wes nodded, and the two retraced their steps to exit the underground fortress. Fearing to run, lest they awaken some new horrific contraption, they maintained a brisk walk. They peeked over their shoulders every few yards, but the tunnels were as lifeless as ever.

But then they reached the main plaza. 

On the far side of the room, blocking the tunnel that led back towards the cave, a large clockwork golem paced.

The two friends stood frozen. The automaton’s stiff, jerky movements were punctuated by clanking when its metal feet met the metal floor. As it turned about face, it faced them and stopped.

“Oh no,” Wes muttered.

The giant began to lumber toward them, one metal claw retreating into the forearm; a large rotating saw blade taking its place.

“What do we do?” Teddy asked, his voice wavering.

“Stick close to me,” Wes said. He held his hand out to signal Teddy to hold steady. The robot stomped closer. 

When it got about three quarters of the way toward them, Wes gave the command to run. He and Teddy ran at an angle towards the side of the room, and then began to follow the arc of the circular wall toward the exit tunnel.

The automaton stopped and retracted its feet, replacing them with wheels. Whatever was powering it revved and it began to roll toward them, quickly closing the gap.

Wes cursed. “Go, go faster!”

Teddy pushed himself to run faster, but slipped. Wes grabbed his belt and hoisted him back onto his feet. He pulled sunblock from Teddy’s pack and began to empty it onto the floor as he ran. 

The wheels lost traction and the golem’s legs splayed out. The entire champer reverberated with the sound of it crashing to the floor.

Teddy and Wes made it to the tunnel and turned to see the machine righting itself and restarting its pursuit. 

“Is it too big to fit through here?” Wes asked.

As if to answer, the automaton compacted itself, decreasing the clearance between it’s disparate limbs.

“Keep running!”

In the long straight tunnel out, the machine was sure to catch them, but they ran on still.

“Throw a flare at it,” Teddy suggested. Wes dug one out, ripped the cap free and struck the ignition button. He threw it back without looking.

The fire seemed to confuse the machine. It skidded to a stop, but the boys did not slow down.

Before long, Teddy and Wes reached the giant doors, which still hung open. Exhausted, and without the stamina to keep sprinting, they slowed to a job as they crossed the vast, empty hall of columns. 

“How long are those flares rated for?” Wes asked as a column blocked the speck of red fire from their view.

“They’re supposed to be fifteen minutes, but they are old. I have no idea if they’ll last.”

Teddy and Wes had barely passed the halfway point of the corridor when they heard the mechanical guard charge out of the city behind them.

“I guess it didn’t last,” Wes said.

They picked up their speed again, and Wes prepared a second flare. Despite their head start across the vacuous hall, the machine easily began closing the gap. When Wes chucked the next flare, the machine simply made a wide arc around it; without the narrowness of the hallway, it was barely delayed. 

The two were within a dozen yards of the narrow passage, with the machine growling right behind. 

Teddy shimmied out of his pack as he ran and handed it to Wes, keeping one flare for himself. “Keep going,” he said.

Teddy lit the flare. He turned to face the whirling pursuer, threw the flare directly at the construct. It struck the head and slipped between cracks in the metal shell, lost in the construct’s chest.

Teddy, already running again, followed Wes into the crevice.

Behind them, the construct exploded into a shower of sparks and shrapnel, its momentum forcing it to collide heavily with the cave wall.

The entire cave began to shake. Wes and Teddy continued scooching their way along the narrow passage.

“Look out!” Teddy shouted. He shoved Wes hard. 

Wes lost his footing and fell forward, knocking out his snaggletooth when his face struck a rock. He turned to help Teddy, but there was nothing but a large boulder behind him.

“Teddy!” Wes waited for a reply. “Teddy!” he shouted again. He pressed his ear against the boulder. Nothing but the echoes of distant drips.

Then his radio chirped.

Wes fumbled with the walkie-talkie clipped to his belt. He’d forgotten about it all together. He cranked the volume knob to the max.

“Teddy?”

*Hey, buddy. I’m glad you didn’t lose the radio in the fuss. You ok?*

“I’m good. I may have twisted my ankle, and I lost my tooth.”

*Again?*

Wes could hear the smile in his voice. He laughed and replied, “yeah, I guess God is trying to tell me something.”

*Brushing was a waste of time?*

Wes laughed again. “Hey, I will go get help. You have enough food for another few hours, right?”

Teddy didn’t respond at first. Then: *Uh… I think you have the pack.*

One of the straps had been caught beneath the rock, but the pack was unharmed. Wes cut the strap and lifted it. 

“OK, you’re right. I have it. I’ll start scanning for anyone on any channel. I’ll get help.”

*Wes, I—* Teddy cut off.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be back before you know it. You won’t even miss the whole first day of school.”

*No, Wes, you don’t understand I—” Teddy released the talk button again.

“I need to get moving, Teddy, we need to get you out of there.”

*Wes, I’m uh… I’m losing a lot of blood on this side. I don’t… I don’t think there’s time to get help.* 

Now it was a lump in Teddy’s throat that Wes heard.

Wes felt tears filling his eyes. “Teddy… no, just keep pressure on it. I’ll be back soon.”

*Please don’t leave man. I want you here with me.*

“Screw you, don’t say that!” Wes lashed out. His lip began to quiver.

*I love you, brother.*

“Stop,” Wes cried. “Please stop.”

*Will you promise me something?*

“Teddy, no… I’ll get help.” Tears and snot ran down Wes’s face and dripped from his chin.

*I want you to try treatment. Don’t just give up.*

Wes couldn’t press the button to respond; grief and fear robbed him of strength.

*There’s no reason for us both to die young, you know?”

“Goddamn you, Teddy!” A flash of rage supplanted Wes’s sorrow. “What the hell! I was the one who was going to die. It should be me trapped in there. Shit dude. You moron!”

*Don’t be mad. I promise I didn’t build the homicidal guard robot just to get you into chemo.*

“It does sound like something you’d be able to pull off though,” Wes said, laughter and tears mixing. 

*I want you to know I’m not afraid.*

“Afraid of what?”

*Whatever comes next… And I don’t have any regrets.*

Wes began to cry again, but couldn’t respond as long as Teddy held down the talk button.

*You are the best friend I could have hoped for. Thanks for always pushing me to take risks. Thanks for being there for me when I needed you. And… thank you for this. This last great adventure. I really do love you.* Teddy released the button.

“I love you too, man. I love you.” Wes had more he wanted to say, but he couldn’t get the words out past the violent sobs that shook him. “I love you.”