Under the Lake

“What in the world is happening?” Thought Damien Bridger as he looked out across the frozen pond. He had come to his favorite spot to relax, think, get away from it all and maybe fish. Nothing in his life seemed to be going right and this morning he grabbed a few things and headed for the nearby mountains. Over the past several years, he had found this lake to be the best place to go to clear his head; and he truly needed to be alone for a while. His girlfriend, of three years, had just dumped him for another guy (the other guy happened to be his older brother), and his boss had come up to him just before quitting time yesterday and told him the company has to cut a few jobs and one of those jobs was his.

But what was this? He came to this pond more frequently than he would like to admit, but how was he going to think things out in his own life, when he couldn’t believe what he was looking at. His favorite pond, he even called it “my pond”was frozen solid and it was the middle of summer. He looked around, the trees were still green with a slight breeze moving the leaves. He saw a squirrel climb up the trunk of a nearby oak.The grass was still green and the sun was shining, in fact, he was sweating from the short hike he had taken from the parking lot to the pond. We was wearing knee-length, blue jean shorts, a dark green, light t-shirt and he felt warm. Why in the world was the pond frozen?

Damien walked over to the edge of the pond, reached down and touched the ice. It was cold, as expected, but it seemed to be super-cooled. It was much colder than it would be at wintertime, it almost seemed artificial, but it was really there. He looked along the edge of the pond, where it touched the land, but he noticed there was no sign of the ice melting; even though the grass right next to the ice was green and warm.

Damien placed his right foot on top of the ice and pressed down as hard as he could with his hiking boot; as far as he could tell, the ice was very thick. He stomped on the ice, first with just his right foot and then with both feet. The ice was solid and thick. He stepped out onto the frozen pond and looked down at the ice. He could see that it was frozen several feet down and he soon realized that the further out he went, the deeper down he was able to see. He continued to cautiously walk across the pond and soon was near the center of it. His eyes widened as the ice was significantly clearer in the center of the lake, and he could see a large object that seemed to be sitting on the bottom of the pond. The large object looked like an underwater factory, with several domed, round buildings that were all connected with tunnels. There were dim greenish lights all around the base of the buildings and at each spot where the tunnels touched the domes. It seemed to take up most of the lake floor and Damien counted eight round buildings, but it was possible there were more.

Damien scratched his head as he looked down at the underwater factory, “how is it possible that I have never seen this before. It must have been here for quite some time “, he thought.

Suddenly, Damien saw a shaft shooting up from the factory, and it was coming straight up at him. He quickly turned to run, but he forgot that he was standing on ice, so instead of running away, he slipped and landed on his back, with a thud. He tried to get up, but he could not get a good footing and his hands also slipped repeatedly. As he continued to try to get to his feet, the ice around him started shaking, which made it even more difficult for him to raise. Then, Damien saw a spinning blade cut up through the ice and the shaft, he had seen rising up from the factory, broke through the frozen lake and stopped. Damien was now laying on his side watching the shaft, and when it stopped he realized it was an elevator with a spinning top that came to a sharp point, with sharp cutting edges on all sides. Below the pointed, razor top, the walls of the shaft were smooth and round. As he was looking at it. Part of the smooth, rounded wall started to move, and a door slid opened.

Damien was still laying on his side on the ice, when a tall thin man with a round face and bald head, stepped out of the elevator. Right beside him was a woman that looked to be just a few years older than Damien. Both the man and the woman were dressed in all white clothing and wore white boots and white gloves; they both wore white lab coats as well. They stepped onto the ice just a few feet from Damien and the man looked down at him.

“Young man, what are you doing here?” He asked in a thick British accent.

Damien tried to stand, but slipped again. The woman stepped forward and offered him her gloved hand. Damien reached up, grabbed her hand and got to his feet. As soon as he was up, the woman let go of him and stepped back, next to the man.

“This is my lake, I come up here to think and fish. What are you doing here and what is that down there?” Damien pointed down at the ice.

The man with the English accent looked at Damien like he was an unwanted insect, “You are trespassing on private property and have no business being here. But now that you have seen our…”

The man paused for a few seconds and looked at the woman. She nodded to him and he looked back at Damien, “you will need to come with us.”

Damien looked at them both with a surprised look on his face, “I’m not going with you two anywhere.”

“You can come with us willingly or we can take you by force, either way..” the man stopped talking when the woman tapped him on the arm.

Then she spoke, “you said you come up here to think and fish. I don’t see any fishing gear, so I’m guessing you came up here to think. Are things not going so well in your life right now?”

Damien didn’t answer, he wasn’t going to spill out his heart to these two strangers that came up from the bottom of the lake. Okay, so his life was in a mess right now, but that was no business of theirs. As he thought about his problems he couldn’t help but look at the woman , he found the woman attractive with her brown, almost black, eyes and jet black hair that was straight and cut just before it reached her shoulders. Her bangs stopped right at her black eyebrows. He was instantly captivated by her.

“I’m sure you have questions, just come with us and then we can answer your questions. I promise that we are not going to hurt you,” continued the woman as she nodded towards to opened elevator door.

Damien looked at the attractive woman for several seconds and then at the man. He saw that the man had his right hand in his lab coat pocket; Damien guessed he had a weapon of some kind. Damien looked back at the woman, “You don’t have to take me by force, I’ll come with you. I do have some questions.”

The three of them entered the metallic elevator and the door closed, Damien watched the man cautiously as the elevator lowered back down into the lake. Damien was hoping the elevator had at least one glass wall so he could see as they dropped into the lake; but no such luck. Damien noticed the elevator only had two buttons, and there were no numbers on or near the buttons.

“How far down is it?” Damien asked as the elevator started to move.

The woman smiled, “It’s not too far, Damien, but it is slower going down that it is going up.”

Damien looked at her in surprise, “How do you know my name?”

She smiled again, “We know all about you Damien, you are the only person that visits this lake and we have all been dying to meet you.”

“I don’t understand. You mean you have been waiting for me? And how many of you are there?”

The bald man spoke up, “all of your questions will be answered shortly.”

Just then the elevator stopped and the sliding door opened, Damien’s jaw dropped at what he saw.

He expected to see a few scientists sitting behind desks and computer screens, instead before his eyes was a bustling city. Everyone was wearing white clothing, but there were hundreds of people going about their lives.

The elevator opened up into a large room that seemed to be an extensive gathering place. There were restaurants, arcades and tables spread throughout the immense circular room. As Damien entered the room, escorted by the man and woman, people stopped what they were doing and stared at Damien.

“Is that him?”

“Who is that?”

“It’s him!”

“It can’t be.”

It is! It’s Damien!”

Damien could not believe his eyes or ears. How did all of them know him? The man and the woman each had a hold of one of his arms and the two of them just looked forward and walked him through the large round room and into a tunnel. It was a short tunnel and soon they entered another large circular room. This one was filled with desk and computers and there was a person at every desk. They turned left at one of the isles between rows of desk and headed toward an office with a closed door.

When they arrived at the door, the man knocked twice, and a voice from within called out and told them to enter. The man opened the metal door and motioned for Damien to enter the room. He did so and was quickly followed by the woman and man.

It was not a large office, there were books on metal shelves and a man with dark brown, short curly hair sitting behind a metal and glass desk.

The man stood, “nice to finally meet you Damien, please have a seat.” The man indicated a chair positioned directly in front of the desk.

Damien sat down and the bald man and black-haired woman sat in chairs on either side of him.

Damien leaned forward slightly, “how does everyone here know me? I don’t understand. Will you please explain this to me?”

The man behind the desk smiled and placed his hands together, with his extended fingers touching; like a spider doing push-ups on a mirror. “It’s true Damien, we all know you, you are kind of a celebrity here. You see, we started building this place over three years ago. One of the first things we did was install cameras around the lake and in the nearby woods. We chose this lake because it is an unknown lake; unknown to everyone but you. As the time passed and as many of us moved into the facility, you were the only one to visit the lake. The citizens of our underwater city, began to look forward to your visits. We used facial recognition software to identify you and then we learned all we could about you. Many of our citizens follow you on your social media sites. And now here you are, it is quite thrilling to actually meet you in person.”

Damien looked at the man behind the desk, “I’m just a regular guy, I come up here to get away from life and take a breather; that’s all. What do you want from me?”

The man’s fingers still looked like stretched out spiders as he smiled again, “We want you to stay with us. Alysha here will be your guide and mentor, while Oslo will be your trainer.” He pointed to the man sitting to Damiens left. “By the way, I’m Drake McDaniels. I’m the director here.”

Damien looked at Alysha and Oslo and then back to Drake, “What is this place?”

“An excellent question Damien, responded Drake. “We are preparing for life on other planets. We chose to build it under this lake so we would be in an environment where we could not breath outside of the facility, just as it will be when we begin construction on a foreign planet. Each person here has given up their normal life and now live here. They must be prepared for such decisions, for once we leave Earth, we will never come back. We have truly created a wonderful place here and we would love for you to join us.”

Damien was stunned. These three people wanted him to leave his prior life behind and live in an underwater city, preparing to someday leave Earth altogether. He was about to laugh at them, but suddenly he remembered why he had come up to this lake in the first place. He had lost everything, his girlfriend, his job and his family.(they all supported his older brother). He had nothing more to loose and an entire new experience to gain.

He came to the lake to find answers about what to do with his life. He looked at Alysha, then Oslo and finally back at Drake. He smiled and responded, “I’ll do it!”