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  I hope that's enough for him. It's all I could think of, and I'm sure he'd understand. You have to trust a guy like that, right? I mean, if you can't, what good isany reality? What good is reason? And I still believe in reason. I do. There's an answer to all this. There must be. Dan would say so.

  Oh, one more thing. That mysterious ring down in the caves? It was always there. Always the same. Does it have something to do with the reality-twisting-if that's what it was? I thought it was probably that disorienting passage later on, but maybe not. I keep thinking about it, and if I do, I'm sure Dan must. And if he does, then he'll figure it out. I have to trust in that thought.

  There's more to the story, of course-like how it ties into World War 3-but I can hear them coming for me. I'll have to tell you the rest of this later. I will, too. This was only the first part of what I was able to get recorded. I know I can't keep the rest inside much longer. No man should have to. So I'll stop here and regroup. Wish me courage. Reason will prevail, won't it? We have to hold onto that, right?

  * * *

  PART 2: The Revelation

  * * *

  CHAPTER 9

  At first, the message looked like a joke. It came late on a Friday night. Well, it was early Saturday morning, but late enough for the Friday night carousers to be in bed or under the table. Too early for the local birds to be chortling and cawing for the sun.

  I'd just checked my watch. It was almost two. I'd folded another terrible hand of poker. A lousy pair of fours. Aces and a possible straight showing against me. It had been a bad night.

  It wasn't so much that I was down fifty bucks. That was normal. I've always been a mediocre card player. No, it was a bad night because I needed the sleep, but felt compelled to stay awake as long as I could. Going home meant drifting off in front of the TV on my creaky old couch in my small apartment. Oh, my place wasn't the problem. I'd grown fond of that little dive on 12th Street. It was quiet, cheap, and in good condition. The problem was that sleep meant nightmares. They were nightmares of a type I thought I'd junked long ago, way back in my early 20s. Amazing how we can fool ourselves. I probably should have known better. But then, I guess I'm known fornot knowing better.

  The bad dreams had been coming for a month, ramming into my subconscious like a flurry of fat fists. Lost in the caves again. That's what the nightmares were about. Losing my cousin Dan again. Trying to find him. Over and over. Always failing. It had really happened, of course. Not quite thirty years ago. Now my stupid subconscious had decided to rerun it night after night. Win or lose, I'd play poker as long as anyone wanted to deal the cards. Nightmare Cinema was not my favorite movie house.

  I'd just put some Carnation creamer and a half teaspoon of sugar into my sixth cup of coffee when I heard the doorbell ring.

  "Get that, would you, Joe?" Frank said from the table, nodding at me. "Probably the pizza."

  An all-night pizza joint had recently set up in town. Fred, our 300-pound never-say-no-to-food player, made full use of the delivery service during the poker games.

  "Yeah, okay," I said.

  It was Frank's house, located near the end of Rose Street in the small town of Lebanon, Oregon. It's where we always played poker on Friday nights.

  I went down the hall toward the front of the house, rubbing my eyes with a knuckle. I opened the door. A light, warm breeze wafted in from the east. It was August and Oregon was doing its annual impression of a Southern California spring. The moon was out, etching everything in dark, sharp shadows. I could smell honeysuckle blossoms. I looked down the walk and off to both sides. There was no one there. No pizza box, either. Thinking that some kid had rung the bell for kicks, I shrugged and started to close the door. That's when I noticed the envelope on the welcome mat. I picked it up. It was plain and white, the kind you could buy at anywhere.

  It had my name on it.

  "What the heck?" I said, glancing up and down the walk again. Nothing.

  I tore open the envelope and squinted to read the note in the moonlight. It was a brief message, written in hastily printed block letters. They looked vaguely familiar.

  The note said, "Meet me at the ring in Darkhorse this morning at six."

  It was signed, "Dan."

  Blood pounded in my temples. My legs got weak. I had to lean against the door frame and make myself breathe.

  There was only one person this note could be from. Trouble was, he'd been gone, probably dead, for almost three decades. Or so I'd thought.

  Cousin Dan also had been my best friend. When we were in our mid-teens, we'd lost track of each other down in the caves under Darkhorse Butte east of town. I got out of them, but Dan didn't. I never found out exactly what happened. He didn't show up again. He was just gone. After all these years, I recalled it as clearly as if it had been the night before.

  We'd edged through a kind of perpetually foggy section of the tunnels. Dan was walking a little ahead of me, just out of sight, probably no more than ten yards. When I reached the place where he should have been, he'd disappeared. There had been no place for him to go. In that section of Darkhorse, there were no side passages, no places to hide, no nook to duck out of sight for a practical joke. It was as though he'd stepped into another reality, through some kind of space-time twist, like what you see in bad science-fiction movies.

  I don't profess to understand it. I think it's beyond my mental firepower. Mind you, I'm not stupid, but I'm no genius, either. Not by a long shot. Not like Dan. His IQ was so high that if you caught a ride on it, you'd find yourself in orbit. It was practically unmeasurable. Don't get me wrong. I'm sure therewas a reason for what happened to us-somewhere. However, it was beyond me. It was for smarter people. Sure, Dan said everything had a reason and at least in theory I believed it. You might say I religiously held onto the idea. Faith in reason, I called it these days. It worked better for me to think of it that way; more wiggle room. Dan would have cringed, though. As a true Objectivist, a follower of Ayn Rand's philosophy, he'd have called it a contradiction in terms. Or maybe just stupid. He always said you had totrust inreason, not have faith in it, because reason derived its value from evidence and proof, not from mere belief.

  Well, whatever. I guess I'd become slightly cynical over the years. I mean, how could you fully trust reason after you'd experienced something like I had, where no matter how hard you ramped up your old rational circuitry, no meaningful answers were forthcoming? How could you engage your rational faculty when the facts squirmed away like slimy eels whenever you tried to make sense of them? Sometimes it got so eerie and unreal that I didn't feel fullyme . Sometimes I felt like-well, like there was a part of me that was locked away, cut off from the rest, and if I could just get at it I could figure everything out. I suppose that doesn't make much sense, either. But that's how it felt. That's one of my problems, too. My feelings too often shoulder aside my rationality. Sometimes I feel like there's a constant war going on inside my head-and I don't have much control over either camp.

  Standing there in the darkened doorway of Frank's place, I tried to will myself to shed the bad memories and self-doubts. I looked at the envelope again, turning it this way and that. I briefly wondered if the note was a joke that one of the guys at the poker table was playing. Naw, couldn't be. No way. I'd told none of them about Dan or the caves. They hadn't known him. In fact, none of them knew much about my past. I wanted it that way. I'd worked hard to keep the old days vague. I'd even adopted a false name: Joe Smith. Original, huh? Actually, it was perfect. Undistinguished, like me. I'd gone to a lot of trouble for a full set of fake ID from a black market house down in Los Angeles.

  I folded and pocketed the note and closed the door. My heart was going twice normal speed. I wouldn't need any more coffee to stay awake now. The adrenaline would keep me going. I looked at my watch. Under four hours to go. If I was going to meet Dan-or whoever this was-down in Darkhorse by six, I figured I'd better get my rear in gear.

  Pleading fatigue and enduring friendly catca
lls of "Short-timer!" and the like, I cashed out of the game and headed home. I knew they'd probably continue playing until eight or nine, maybe 'til noon. These guys were poker addicts. Hell, if the Darkhorse meeting was a bust, maybe I'd rejoin the game.

  From the back of my bedroom closet, I pulled out my old miner's cap. The battery was dead, so I took a moment to replace it with a spare. I dragged out a dusty rope and a set of pitons. I worked fast. I stuffed my Leatherman tool in one front pocket and a small flashlight in the other. I put some jerky in my shirt pocket and filled my old canteen with fresh water. On impulse, I strapped on the shoulder holster for my Smith & Wesson Centennial .357. It was a late 90s model, before Uncle Sam forced the makers to produce so-called smart guns-the ones that IDed you with print and grip sensors, took forever to fire, and hence were useless in a fast-moving situation. Dumb guns, I called 'em. I checked the cylinder. I usually used .38s in it and it was full. I pocketed a handful of extra shells. Then I shrugged into a light coat, and locked up. There was no one to leave a note for. I currently had no love life. I had no relatives to wonder about me. And all my friends knew I was a loner. They didn't care. I often disappeared for a week or more, working out of town or going on long camping and other pleasure trips.

  Not quite two hours after leaving Frank's, I was at the butte. The sun was reddening the sky behind Darkhorse. Actually a dormant volcano, the butte reminded me of a drab old buffalo hunkered down against the dawn. It looked unsettling, almost threatening. I parked my beat-up GMC pickup truck in the brush off a spur of an abandoned logging road. I figured that I could probably leave the rig there for weeks and no one would find it.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 10

  It took me only a few minutes to locate the entrance to the caves.

  "Aw, frack!" I mumbled, resting my fists on my hips and glaring.

  The entrance was completely blocked by a chainlink gate. I hadn't been there in years. I'd forgotten about this. The gate was overgrown with several seasons of vines and weeds. When Dan and I had used the entrance, it was open to anyone. However, about ten years back the city council had ordered the caves sealed. This "considered and unanimous action in the greater public interest" came after two out-of-state kids had fallen and died in the caves. Well, they weren't the first. If you didn't know what you were doing, the caves of Darkhorse were definitely dangerous. At least a dozen people had croaked in 'em over the years. I thought the city fathers had over-reacted by blocking the entrance. Bureaucrats tend to over-do or under-do to almost everything. They didn't ask my opinion, though, and I didn't offer it. I had the urge, but I was afraid that if I spoke up, my old experiences with Dan would come out. Then who knew what kind of "official" questions I'd have to face. It wasn't for me. Joe Smith preferred avery low profile.

  I pulled away most of the weeds to get a better look at the gate. It was secured with a rusty old Master combination lock. I jerked it a couple of times, but it held. Then I noticed that the top hinge had pulled away from the cement seal against the cave rock to the left. By bracing myself and working at it, I was gradually able to bend the gate down enough to squeeze through. On the other side, I brushed the dust and weed seeds from my coat and pants. I turned on my miner's light and trudged into the caves.

  Dan had told me to meet him at the ring. I knew the way by heart. I'd been there literally a thousand times. For several years, I'd gone into Darkhorse almost once a day, hoping to find Dan. That may seem stupid to you, and I can see why. After all, even search and rescue pros tend to give up after a week or two. This was different. You see, I always had the unshakable feeling that Dan might be alive. A slim hope, true. But Dan was special. Not only did he break the IQ scales, but he and I knew something that no one else did about the Darkhorse caves. They weren't entirely natural. I don't mean supernatural. That crap is for the crystal worshippers and cult crawlers. No, what I mean is that there were things in Darkhorse that were man made. The ring, for instance. I thought it was barely possible that Dan had slipped into someplace-a doorway I'd never found, perhaps-or was actually taken by someone. In one of his wilder moments, Dan had speculated that one section of the caves might be a gateway into alternate realities. We had cause to wonder about that, because whenever we went all the way through the caves, things were-well,different . Subtle things. Like a missing letter in the alphabet. People you knew with the wrong color hair. Buildings that weren't in the town a few hours earlier, or stores with strange tenants. At first we wondered if we were going a little crazy. It didn't feel crazy, though. Not exactly. It did and it didn't. The events were weird, but we didn't seem screwed up inside or to each other.

  There was also the overwhelmingly solid fact that we never found our families again. Oh, we found people who were close, people who resembled our moms and dads, but there was always something creepilyoff . Something that didn't ring true. We'd deeply, badly lost our way in life. Either something had made us go a little nuts, or some kind of science we didn't understand had played very nasty games with us.

  In any case, I never found my way back to my original home, or reality, or whatever you choose to call it. Finally, I had to settle down and make something of myself. I'd picked Lebanon-or thisversion of it-partly because there had never been someone like me in the town. There was no risk of running into a near double or his kin. I'd had close calls with that several times. I didn't know if anything bad would happen, but it was an uncomfortable feeling and it would certainly call attention to me. I didn't want that.

  It feels lame putting it into words in this cheap little digital recorder. Hell, maybe, as Dan used to say, we'd stumbled into some kind of dimensional gate project. Sounds goofy, doesn't it? Remember, though, that we were only about 15 at the time and had probably watched way too many episodes ofThe Outer Limits .

  Who had made the things under Darkhorse? Like the ring or the steel-lined geyser? Well, we never found out about that, either. We suspected that it was connected to a secret US Army project. That wasn't as loopy as it might sound. After all, there was an oddball base up on the back side of the butte. It had been built in a flurry of hurry back in the eighties, all hush-hush and no contact with the local folks. It had long since been abandoned. Or nearly so. Just a skeleton military police staff, patrolling the miles-long, 14-foot high, razor-wired perimeter fence day and night. They brooked no nonsense from trespass attempts. Dan himself had almost gotten caught spying in on the base from a giant fir tree. When he went back the next day, the tree was gone with no evidence it had ever been there.

  Yeah, it was stranger than a barking cat. The Army never told anyone what the base was for or why it was still minimally maintained. Town gossip held that not even the state governors knew. Or if they did, they never said. Have to admit, they showed a surprising lack of interest. Now and then some young reporter would get interested for awhile, but his inquiry would die on the vine. Traffic in and out of the base was skimpy. When it existed, it was always by helicopter, the noiseless, stealthy types. Private citizen inquiries about the place were diverted to the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. I knew, because I'd tried. The Pentagon would say-ever so politely-that the base was there "for national security purposes." That's all anyone ever found out. Or at least that's all they publicly admitted.

  Now, though, if Dan was alive, maybe I'd get some answers after all these years. More than anything, I realized, it was the prospect of hard, straight answers that had drawn me down into Darkhorse again. Maybe the answers would stop my nightmares. I figured that just seeing Dan alive ought to help do that.

  I made good time descending the several levels of the cave system. I took all the correct turns. Nothing had changed. It was exactly as I'd remembered it: a maze of old magma vents shot through with limestone caverns and channels. At 5:55 I passed through the "howler." That was a cavern with a steel-lined, irregular geyser that went off with a forlorn moaning sound, like an animal being tortured. I quickly passed through the section and entered a long, up-sloping
tunnel. It was thick with steam. At six o'clock I arrived at what we called the ring.

  I looked around. No one was there, but the ring look the same as I remembered it. A few inches wide, it rimmed the tunnel in a perfect circle. The metal was iridescent, giving off rainbow colors in the dim light. I ran my fingers over the surface. Despite the steam, no condensation ever formed on this metal, whatever it was.

  "Hey, ol' Bud," a deep voice said behind me.

  I flinched. The hair on my arms and legs stood up, like I'd passed close to a big power transformer. It was Dan's voice. Maybe a bit more gravely, but it was the same deep sound he'd had since he was twelve.

  I slowly turned to look at him, a smile forming on my face.

  There was a strange light behind him. It threw his face into shadow.

  "Dan?" I squinted and asked, my voice cracking. "Is it really you?"

  "It's me," he said.

  Then he raised a gun and shot me.

  There was a little dart lodged in my chest. I looked at it stupidly for a second, then felt my eyes roll up into my head as everything spun into darkness.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 11

  Consciousness came back in bits and pieces.

  I smelled a combination of rubbing alcohol and electrical insulation. I sensed no light or sound. The odor of fresh sheets came into focus next. It was followed by a whiff of chlorine. Then a fuzzy light and a low humming sound snapped into my awareness almost at the same time. I felt no heat, no cold, no pressure. I couldn't feel my own body and couldn't move. I didn't care. Contentment filled me. I drifted in an out with only a few sources of input, like a primitive animal that hadn't fully evolved.