The Zero Game

37

Walking as fast as I can with my briefing book in hand, I keep up my Senator stride as we head for the red brick building. The book is actually the owner’s manual from the glove compartment of the Suburban, but at the pace we’re moving, no one’ll ever get a good look. On my right, Viv completes the picture, trailing behind me like the faithful aide to my Wendell executive. Between her height and her newly pressed navy suit, she looks old enough to play the part. I tell her not to smile, just to be safe. The only way to belong is to act like you belong. But the closer we get to the brick building, the more we realize there’s almost no one around to call us out and scream bullshit. Unlike the trailers behind us, the pathways over here are all empty.

“You think they’re underground?” Viv asks, noticing the sudden decrease in population.

“Hard to say; I counted sixteen cars in the parking lot — plus all that machinery. Maybe all the work’s being done back by the trailers.”

“Or maybe whatever’s up here is something they don’t want tons of people to see.”

I pick up my pace; Viv matches my speed. As we turn the corner of the brick building, there’s a door in front and a metal grated staircase that heads down and into an entrance on the side of the building. Viv looks my way. I agree. Sticking to the back roads, we both go for the stairs. As we step down, little bits of rock slide from our shoes through the grating and down to a concrete alley twenty feet below. It’s not even close to the drop we’re about to take. I look over my shoulder. Staring through the steps, Viv starts slowing down.

“Viv…”

“I’m fine,” she calls out, even though I never asked the question.

Inside the red brick building, we cross through a dark tiled hallway and enter a kitchenette that feels like it’s been picked over and left for dead. The vinyl floor is cracked, the refrigerator is open and empty, and a cork bulletin board sits flat on the floor, filled with brittle, yellowed union notices that’re dated at least two years ago. Whatever these guys are up to, they’ve only come back here recently.

Back in the hallway, I stick my head in a room where the door is off its hinges. It takes me a second to weave inside, but when I do, I stop midstep on the tile floor. In front of me are row after row of open industrial showers, but the way they’re set up, it’s like a gas chamber — the nozzles are just pipes sticking out of the wall. And though I know they’re just showers, when I think of the miners washing away another grueling day of work, it’s truly one of the most depressing sights I’ve ever seen.

“Harris, I got it!” Viv says, calling me back to the hallway, where she taps her pointer finger against a sign that says The Ramp. Below the words, there’s a tiny directional arrow pointing down another set of stairs.

“You sure that’s the-?”

She motions to the old metal punch clock that’s next to the sign, then looks back at the bulletin board and the refrigerator. No question about it. When miners used to fill this place, here’s where they started every day.

Down the stairs, the hallway narrows, and the ceiling is low. From the mustiness alone, I know we’re in the basement. There are no more rooms off to the side — and not a single window in sight. Following another sign for The Ramp, we dead-end at a rusted blue metal door that’s caked in mud and reminds me of the door on an industrial freezer. I give it a sharp push, but the door seems to push back.

“What’s wrong?” Viv asks.

I shake my head and try again. This time, the door cracks open slightly, and a sharp, hot gust of air bursts out, licking me in the face. It’s a wind tunnel down there. I shove a little harder, and the door swings open, its rusty hinges screaming as the full dry heat of the breeze bounces against our chests.

“Smells like rocks,” Viv says, covering her mouth.

Reminding myself that the man in the parking lot told us to come this way, I will myself to take my first step into the narrow concrete hallway.

As the door shuts behind us, the wind dies down, but the dryness is still in the air. I keep licking my lips, but it doesn’t help. It’s like eating a sand castle.

Up ahead, the hallway curves to the right. There are some full mop buckets along the floor, and a fluorescent light in the ceiling. Finally, a sign of life. Heading deeper into the turn, I’m not sure what we’re breathing, but as I taste the bitter air on my tongue, it’s dusty, hot, and bad. On the left-hand wall, there’s a 1960s-era Fallout Shelter sign with an arrow pointing dead ahead. Caked in dirt, you can still make out the black and yellow nuclear logo.

“Fallout shelter?” Viv asks, confused. “Eight thousand feet below ground? A little overkill, no?”

Ignoring the comment, I stay focused on the hallway, and as it straightens out, we get our second sign of life.

“What is it?” Viv says, hesitantly moving forward.

Up ahead, the right and left sides of the hall are covered from floor to ceiling with metal storage racks that look like shallow bookshelves. But instead of books, they’re filled with gear: dozens of knee-high rubber boots, thick nylon tool belts, and most important, mine lights and white construction helmets.

“Is this gonna fit?” Viv asks, forcing a laugh as she pulls a helmet onto her short-cropped Afro. She’s trying her best to act ready for this, but before she convinces me, she has to convince herself. “What’s this?” she adds, nervously tapping the metal clip on the front of her helmet.

“For the light,” I say, pulling one of the mine lights off the shelf. But as I attempt to grab the round metal bulb, I notice that it’s connected by a black wire to a red plastic case that holds a paperback-sized version of a car battery — and that the battery is connected to some clips on the shelf. This isn’t just a bookcase — it’s a charging station.

Unlatching the clips, I unhook the battery, pull it from the shelf, and slide it onto one of the nearby tool belts. As Viv fastens it around her waist, I thread the wire over the back of her shoulder and hook the light onto the front of her helmet. Now she’s all set. An official miner.

She flips a switch, and the light turns on. Twenty-four hours ago, she would’ve bobbed her head back and forth, teasing me by shining the light in my face. Now the light shines on her feet as she stares at the floor. The excitement’s long gone. It’s one thing to say you’re going underground; it’s entirely another thing to do it.

“Don’t say it…” she warns as I’m about to open my mouth.

“It’s safer than being-”

“I said don’t say it. I’ll be fine,” she insists. She clenches her teeth and takes a deep breath of the hot, chalky air.

“How do we know which ones are charged?” she asks. Reading my expression, she points to the bookshelves on our right and left. Both are filled with battery packs. “What if one’s a check-in station and one’s a checkout?” she adds, knocking on the red casing of her own battery. “For all we know, this came back ten minutes ago.”

“You think that’s how they-?”

“That’s what they do at laser tag,” she points out.

I give her a long look. I hate myself for bringing her here.

“You keep yours from the left, I’ll take mine from the right,” I say. “Either way, we’ll at least have one that works.”

She nods at the logic as I grab two orange mesh construction vests from a nearby garbage can. “Put this on,” I tell her, tossing one of the vests her way.

“Why?”

“The same reason every bad spy movie has someone sneaking in dressed as a janitor. An orange vest’ll take you anywhere…”

Skeptically examining herself as she tightens the Velcro straps on the side of the vest, she adds, “I look like I should be doing roadwork.”

“Really? I was thinking more crossing guard.”

She laughs at the joke — and from the smile on her face, it looks like it’s exactly what she needed.

“Feeling better?” I ask.

“No,” she says, unable to hide her smirk. “But I’ll get there.”

“I’m sure we will.”

She likes the sound of that.

“So you really think we can pull this off?” she asks.

“Don’t ask me — I’m the one who said you can’t win ’em all.”

“You still feel that way?”

I lift one shoulder and move up the dust-filled hallway.

Viv’s right behind me.

At the far end of the hall, the metal bookshelves are gone, and the basement walls are instead lined with wooden benches that sit end to end for at least a few hundred feet. Based on the photos in the brochure, during the mine’s heyday, miners lined up here every morning, waiting for their ride to work. Back in D.C., we do the same thing on the metro — line up underground and take the subway downtown. The only difference out here is, the subway isn’t a horizontal ride. It’s vertical.

“What’s that noise…?” Viv asks, still standing a few steps behind me.

Straight ahead, the mouth of the hallway opens into a room with a thirty-foot ceiling, and we hear a deafening rumble. The wood benches vibrate slightly, and the lights begin to flicker — but our eyes are glued to the elevator shaft that slices from floor to ceiling through the center of the tall room. Like a vertical freight train, the elevator rockets up through the floor and disappears through the ceiling. Unlike a normal elevator shaft, however, this one is only enclosed on three sides. Sure, there’s a yellow stainless steel door that prevents us from peeking into the shaft and having our heads chopped off, but above the door — in the twenty-foot space before the ceiling starts — we can see straight into the elevator as it flies by.

“You see anyone?” I ask Viv.

“It was only half a second.”

I nod. “I thought it looked empty, though.”

“Definitely empty,” she agrees.

Stepping further into the room, we simultaneously crane our necks up at the elevator shaft. For some reason, there’s water running down the walls. As a result, the wooden walls of the shaft are dark, slick, and slowly corroding. The closer we get, the more we feel the draft of cold air emanating from the open hole. We’re still at basement level, but the way the tunnel curved us around, I’m guessing we’re in another building.

“Think that’s the teepee up there?” Viv asks, pointing with her chin at the sliver of sunlight that creeps through the very top of the shaft.

“I think it has to be — the woman in the motel said that’s where the-”

A dull thud echoes down the shaft from the room above. It’s followed by another… and another. The noise stays steady but never gets louder. Just soft and even — like footsteps. Viv and I both freeze.

“Frannie, it’s Garth — cage is at station,” a man’s voice announces with a flat South Dakota accent. His voice reverberates through the shaft — it’s coming from the room above us.

“Stop cage,” a female voice replies, crackling through an intercom.

There’s a loud shriek of metal that sounds like a storefront’s rolltop gate being thrown open — the steel safety gate on the front of the cage. The footsteps clunk as they enter the cage. “Stop cage,” the man says as the door slides shut with another shriek. “Going to thirteen-two,” he adds. “Lower cage.”

“Thirteen-two,” the woman repeats through the intercom. “Lowering cage.”

A second later, there’s a soft rumble, and the benches behind us again start to vibrate. “Oh, shit…” Viv mutters.

If we can see them, they can see us. As the elevator plummets downward, we both race to opposite sides of the shaft. Viv goes left; I go right. The elevator screeches past us like a freefall ride in an amusement park, but within seconds, the thundering sound is muffled as it fades down the rabbithole. Ducked around the corner, I still don’t move. I just listen — waiting to see how long it takes. It’s a seemingly endless drop. Six Empire State Buildings straight down. And then… deep below us, the metal of the cage whispers slightly, lets out one final gasp, and finally — poof — disappears in the dark silence. The only thing we hear now is the calming swish of the water as it runs down the walls of the shaft.

Above my head, next to the rusted-out yellow door, there’s a short wall with a break-glass-in-emergency fire alarm. Next to the alarm is a phone receiver and a matching rusty keypad. There’s our way in.

I glance back at Viv, who’s got her hands up on her head and a dumbfounded look on her face as she studies the elevator. “Nuh-uh-uh,” she says. “Nuh-uh. No way you’re gettin’ me in that…”

“Viv, you knew we were going down…”

“Not in that rusty old thing, I didn’t. Forget it, Harris — I’m done. Gone. Nn-nnn. Momma don’t let me get on buses that run inta that bad a neighborhood…”

“This isn’t funny.”

“I agree… That’s why I’m keeping my black ass right here.”

“You can’t hide here.”

“I can… I will… I am. You go jump in the well — I’ll be the one up here turning the crank so we can at least get the water bucket back at the end of the day.”

“Where’re you gonna hide up here?”

“Plenty of places. Lots of ’em…” She looks around at the wooden benches… the narrow hallway… even the empty elevator shaft, where there’s nothing but a cascade of running water. The rest of the room is just as bare. There’re some old tires in the corner and an enormous wooden spool of discarded electrical wire in the back.

I cross my arms and stare her down.

“C’mon, Harris, stop...”

“We shouldn’t separate, Viv. Trust me on this — I can feel it in my gut: we need to stay together.”

Now she’s the one staring at me. She studies my eyes, then glances over at the intercom. Just behind us, leaning against the wall, is a bright blue sign with white stenciled letters:

Level: Station Code

Top:1-1

Ramp:1-3

200:2-2

300:2-3

800:3-3

The list continues through all fifty-seven levels. Right now, we’re on the Ramp. At the very bottom, the list ends with:

Level: Station Code

7700:12-5

7850:13-1

8000:13-2

The eight-thousand-foot level. Station code: thirteen-two. I remember it from the guy with the flat accent barely two minutes ago. That’s the code he yelled into the intercom to take the elevator down, which means that’s where the action is. Thirteen-two. Our next destination. I turn back to Viv.

She’s still glaring at the blue sign and the word 8000. “Hurry up and call it in,” she mutters. “But if we get stuck down there,” she threatens, sounding just like her mom, “you’re gonna pray God gets you before I do.”

Wasting no time, I pick up the receiver and take a quick check of the ceiling for video cameras. Nothing in sight — which means we’ve still got some wiggle room. I dial the four-digit number that’s printed on the base of the rusty keypad: 4881. The numbers stick as I press each one.

“Hoist…” a female voice answers.

“Hey, it’s Mike,” I announce, playing the odds. “I need a ride down to thirteen-two.”

“Mike who?” she shoots back, unimpressed. From her accent, I know she’s a local. From my accent, she knows I’m not.

“Mike,” I insist, pretending to be annoyed. “From Wendell.” If the Wendell folks are just moving in, she’s been having conversations like this all week. There’s a short pause, and I can practically hear the sigh leave her lips.

“Where are you?” she asks.

“The Ramp,” I say, reading it again from the sign.

“Wait right there…”

As I turn toward Viv, she reaches into her pocket and takes out a metal device that looks like a thin version of a calculator, but without as many buttons.

Reading my look, she holds it up so I can see it. Below the digital screen is a button marked O ₂%. “Oxygen detector?” I ask as she nods. “Where’d you get that?”

She motions over her shoulder to the shelves in the hallway. The black digital numbers on the screen read 20.9.

“Is that good or bad?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” she says, reading the instructions on the back. “Listen to this: Warning: Lack of oxygen may be unnoticeable and will quickly cause unconsciousness and/or death. Check detector frequently. You gotta be friggin’-”

The thought’s interrupted by the giant rumble in the distance. It’s like a train pulling into a station — the floor starts to vibrate, and I can feel it against my chest. The lights flicker ever so slightly, and Viv and I twist back toward the elevator shaft. There’s a sharp screech as the brakes kick in and the cage rattles toward us. But unlike last time, instead of continuing through the ceiling, it stops right in front of us. I glance through the cutout window in the yellow steel door, but there’s no light inside the cage. It’s gonna be a dark ride down.

“See anything?” the female hoist operator asks sarcastically through the receiver.

“Yeah… no… it’s here,” I reply, trying to remember the protocol. “Stop cage.”

“Okay, get yerself in and hit the intercom,” she says. “And don’t forget to tag in before you go.” Before I can ask, she explains, “The board behind the phone.”

Hanging up the receiver, I cross behind the short wall that holds the phone and fire alarm.

“We okay?” Viv asks.

I don’t answer. On the opposite side of the wall, short nails are hammered into a square plank of wood and numbered 1 through 52. Round metal tags hang from nails 4, 31, and 32. Three men are already in the mine, plus however many entered from the level above. From my pocket I pull out my own two tags — both numbered 27. One in your pocket, one on the wall, the guy out front said.

“You sure that’s smart?” Viv asks as I put one of my tags on the nail labeled 27.

“If something happens, it’s the only proof we’re down there,” I point out.

Tentatively she pulls out her own tag and hooks it on the nail labeled 15.

“Harris…”

Before she can say it, I cross back to the front of the cage. “It’s just insurance — we’ll be up and down in a half hour,” I say, hoping to keep her calm. “Now c’mon, your Cadillac awaits…”

With a sharp yank, I pull the lever on the steel door. The lock unhooks with a thunk, but the door weighs a ton. As I dig in my feet and finally tug it open, a mist of cold water sprays against my face. Up above us, a drumbeat of thick droplets bangs against the top of my construction helmet. It’s like standing directly under the edge of an awning during a rainstorm. The only thing between us and the cage is the metal safety gate on the cage itself.

“Let’s go…” I say to Viv, reaching down and twisting the latch at the bottom of the gate. With one last pull and a final metal shriek, the gate rolls open like a garage door, revealing an interior that reminds me of the Dumpster where I found Viv’s nametag. Floors… walls… even the low ceiling — it’s all rusted metal, slick with water and covered in dirt and grease.

I motion to Viv, and she just stands there. I motion again, and she hesitantly follows me inside, desperately looking for something to hold on to. There’s nothing. No banisters, no handrails, not even a fold-down seat. “It’s a steel coffin,” she whispers as her voice echoes off the metal. I can’t argue with the analogy. Built to carry as many as thirty men standing shoulder to shoulder below the earth and to withstand any random blasting that might be happening on any level, the space is as cold and bare as an abandoned boxcar. The thing is, as thick drops of water continue to drumbeat against my helmet, I realize there’s one thing worse than being stuck in a coffin: being stuck in a leaky coffin.

“This is just water, right?” Viv asks, squinting up at the mist.

“If it were anything bad, those other guys would never’ve gotten in,” I point out.

Flipping a switch on the front of her helmet, Viv turns on her mine light and stares down at the directions for her oxygen detector. I flip on my own light and approach the intercom, which looks like the buzzer outside my old apartment building. The only difference is, thanks to years of water damage, the entire front panel is covered with a thick mossy film that smells like wet carpet.

“You gonna touch that?” Viv asks.

I don’t have a choice. I press the large red button with just the very tips of my fingers. It’s caked in slippery goo. My fingers slide as I hit it.

“Stop cage,” I say into the speaker.

“You close the safety gate?” the woman’s voice buzzes through the intercom.

“Doing it right now…” Reaching up, I grab the wet nylon strap and drag the garage door back into place. It screeches against the rollers and slams with a metal clang. Viv jumps at the sound. No turning back.

“Just one more question,” I say into the intercom. “All the water down here…”

“That’s just for the shaft,” the woman explains. “Keeps the walls lubricated. Just don’t drink it and you’ll be fine,” she adds with a laugh. Neither of us laughs back. “Now, you ready or not?” she asks.

“Absolutely,” I say, staring through the metal grate at the emptiness of the basement. The way Viv’s light shines over my shoulder, I can tell she’s giving it one last look herself. Her light points toward the fire alarm and the telephone. On the other side of the wall are our metal tags. The only proof of our descent.

I turn around to say something but decide against it. We don’t need another speech. We need answers. And whatever’s down here, this is the only way we’ll get them.

“Going to thirteen-two,” I say into the intercom, using the same code from before. “Lower cage.”

“Thirteen-two,” the woman repeats. “Lowering cage.”

There’s a grinding of metal and one of those never-ending pauses you find on a roller coaster. Right before the big drop.

“Don’t look,” the woman teases through the intercom. “It’s a long way down…”