It was a quiet night in the bar. Behind the counter the barmaid looked like she was ready to go to sleep, and the three customers didn't give her much work. At a table at the window sat a businessman who was probably passing thorugh town. He stared emptily into his glass of beer as he had been for the past half hour or so, apparently the most interesting thing he'd found to do. At the bar, slightly swaying sat a regular. He had to be, because he maintained a slurry and pointless conversation with the barmaid who only rarely answered him. Something they carried out with such ease, that it had to be routine. At a desk in the darkest corner sat a young man. He was probably around 25, a handsome young man with a pale complexion and a devotion to his drink. A devotion that did not prevent him from studying the others in the room. His master had told him that coming here was dangerous, but he had reluctantly given his permission, warning him that he could go have a drink, but he was not to talk with anyone. It got kind of lonely up there, with only his master and himself 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. He was the first person in the room to notice the man who walked in. He was tall and looked slightly overweight, but it was hard to tell under the huge wintercoat he wore. He took the whole room in with a single sweep of his sharp eyes and ordered and received a drink in a way that suggested that he was a regular customer. He stood with his whiskey and thought for a little while, then he set his course and steered straight for the cornertable with the young man.
- Hello, young man, he said with a pleasant, deep voice.
- Mind if I join you?
- Not at all, the young man said and made room.
- My name is Arthur, the tall man introduced himself as he sat down.
- My name is ... Jim, the young man said and looked down shyly.
- Well, hello Jim. I haven't seen you around here before, have I?
Jim shook his head.
- No, I don't think so. I don't get out much.
- That's funny. Joe didn't either.
- Joe? The young man looked surprised.
- Yes. It's a long story, but if you have half and hour or so...
His voice trailed off and left an expectant silence.
- Sure, Jim said with a curious look.
- It sure beats sitting here and drinking alone.
- Well... It all started right here in this bar.
- I was nursing a beer when he walked in. He was a short, grey man and everything about him made me think about the standard bookkeeper. From his round glasses to the old, grey suit. But there was something odd about him. For one thing he ordered his drinks as if it was the first and last time he was out. I decided that I found him interesting, so I went over to him to ask him if I could buy him a drink. When he looked up at me, I just knew that he had a story to tell. That haunted look in his eyes was that of a perfectly ordinary man who has seen too many extraordinary things in his life. But there was more. There was also fear and wariness. So I decided to introduce myself.
- My name is Arthur, Arthur Jones. I am a clerk over at the Timber Yard.
The fear oozed out of his face.
- Sit down. My name is ... well, you can call me Joe.
He had a slightly hoarse and whiny voice. It sounded like he didn't use it much. Sitting this close to him I could tell that he was probably around 60. The barmaid arrived with our drinks and as he reached for it I could see that his hand trembled. Then he grabbed the glass so hard that his fingers turned white and he downed the whiskey decisively.
- You look like a man who wants to get drunk, I ventured.
He nodded without taking his eyes off the empty glass on the table.
- Well, I think I could manage getting a little drunk myself. Mind if I just sit here and do it? It's always more fun to get drunk with someone than alone.
- Not at all, he said and his face actually lit up although there was still a spark of wariness deep in his eyes.
- Actually - I think I could do with some company tonight.
After that things got blurry and I remember only fragments. I don't know how we got to talking about it, but I must have entertained him with my conviction that there has been other technologically advanced civilizations before this one.
- There has, he nodded with so much confidence in his voice that it cut through the building haze in my mind.
- I have seen things that ... well, they could only have come from such cultures.
He went quiet for a while and when he spoke again, he changed the subject.
For an hour or so we talked and drank on and somehow I got to talking about Indiana Jones. I was surprised that he didn't know the movies so I retold the first movie in as much detail as I could remember. Between the airy feeling in my head and it being a very long time since I saw the movie that wasn't much. But one scene I remembered very well, and naturally it was told more vividly than the rest.
- Well, in the end when Indy has survived all this, the ark of the covenant is taken by some people and the crate containing it is put into this huge storeroom that's filled with masses of other crates. So you see, you can't help but wonder what's in all the other crates.
- I can, he said quietly in a slightly slurred voice.
- A profound lack of curiosity is actually the primary quality my employers look for in their employees.
- What do you do for a living, I asked him, my own curiosity getting the better of me.
He looked at me, but the causious part of him had been sufficiently drowned.
- I work for the government. He thought about that for a while.
- At least I think I do. I've never really thought about it before. Anyway I work in a store all filled with crates like the one you described. Then he went quiet again.
After that I don't really remember what happened. Suddenly I found myself in an endless corridor. Evenly spaced along its walls were steel doors. The air smelled dry and old. Like the smell in the basement of a library. Joe was walking beside me, his grey hair highlit by the fluorescent tubes that lit the place. Our footsteps echoed with a short, hard sound off the concrete all around us. I felt suddenly sober, probably in part because of the cold. There couldn't have been more than 15 degrees celcius. I felt like I had been dumped into a movie, a dark science fiction like Brazil or 1984. Then Joe stopped beside me and opened one of the steel doors.
- This is where I live, he said.
I looked in and saw a small room with a door in the right wall and another one opposite me. It was a naked room. Two paintings hung on the walls and a calendar without pictures. Against the left wall stood a desk with an old monster of a computer on it. In the opposite corner was a small table and a rickety chair. Joe came in and opened the door to the right and I looked in on a tiny room with just enough room for a military-style bed and a steel closet. Behind the last door was a small kitchen with another door that led to a bathroom. Everywhere there were naked concrete walls and ceilings. Whoever had designed the rooms had at least put carpets on the floor in the livingroom and the bedroom and linoleum in the kitchen and the bathroom. I've never seen such a miserable place. I turned to look at Joe. His face was just as drab as the rooms. I guess he hadn't really noticed the dullness of the place before someone else saw it. That's a common enough thing. As a rule, people don't look at what they see every day untill they show it to someone else.
- Where are we anyway, I asked him.
His mind must still have been slowed by the alcohol because it took a while before he reacted.
- This is where I work. You wanted to see what I do for a living, remember.
Well, I did remember - sort of.
- Come on, he continued as he walked out the door.
- I'll show you what I do all day long.
I followed him down the corridor, wondering what he was going to show me. He stopped in front of a steel door, just as anonymous as all the others. With a perfectly ordinary Ruko key he unlocked it and opened it to reveal a dark room. Reaching across me he flipped a switch on the wall and lights began blinking to life in the ceiling high above us. Steel-structures supported the ceiling, not unlike that of a hangar. Below, far below was a concrete floor. And in the middle there were crates. Crates of every conceivable size and material. Far toward the hangar-like doors at the other end of the room I could see the corner of a blue container and off to the left, one side of a red one formed part of the basis of a rack filled with more crates. Joe walked down the steel stairs that led to the floor a couple of metres down and I followed him. What had looked like a sea of crates from the door resembled nothing so much as a maze from the floor. I felt like the pet rat of a boy who has build a maze of buildingblocks and dumped me in it. But Joe did not hesitate. He walked quickly and determenedly through the maze and as he walked he talked. Being on his home ground seemed to have loosened his tongue.
- This is where I've been working and living for 40 years. I have no interests other than this, no life beyond it. All that I am is here. He led me past a rack filled with what I would have called shoe-boxes if shoes came in black, metalbound leather.
- I was recruited when I was 18. At first I thought that I was getting a desk-job for the military and I was taken to a military base which only strengthened that idea. With no friends and no family to miss me, I was perfectly suited for the job. They took me to this place and a guy called Bob met me. He had worked here for 50 years, and he told me that I was to be his apprentice. The first thing he taught me was how to use the card catalogue that is in a room like this, two storeys down. There are boxes there, from floor to ceiling, from wall to wall. One card for each crate or box or item that is in this place. The cards were weird. Every now and again I would come across a name or a note that I had heard of. Thor's hammer? noted in handwriting on a card or Excalibur as the title of another. But the vast majority of cards described things I had never heard of. When I had mastered the cards Bob took me in here. You said that you believed that there has been technological civilizations before our own. Well, you are right. Down here are the artifacts to prove it. There are machines that run on solar power, gathered and enhanced by crystals. There are tools that take their power from the wielders own strength. I've even seen things that work on the psychic power of a person. But that's not all. There are things down here that don't exist. Crates that nobody knows what contains because everybody who has ever attempted to open them has died. Boxes that can drive you mad if you look at the contents. Every conceivable horror is represented here. That is why a lack of curiosity is nessesary. If you are too curious, you simply don't survive down here for long.
He stopped in front of a big, red container. His eyes were glowing madly.
- Somewhere in the Appalachians not too far from NORAD lies a secret military base hidden in the forrest. Drilled into the mountain above it is this store. Those who enter, dosen't leave. The few who knows the secret doesn't tell. Everything in here is dangerous. From the things that should not exist from mankinds past to things that we haven't invented yet. The greatest dreams of mankind exists here, but so does the greatest fears.
Slowly, he pulled the door of the container open. The inside was empty save for a large crate standing directly opposite the door. It glowed in the darkness in the container.
- I don't know whether the people who wrote the story that you told me knew or had just taken a lucky guess, but they were on to something.
He walked into the gloomy interior of the thing and for a moment his body obscured the glowing crate. Then I heard a creaking sound and suddenly his figure was highlighted from behind. I had half guessed what he was going to show me when he turned around and waved me closer.
- To millions of people around the world this is a holy artefact. To me - it's just another crate, another catalogue card.
He stepped aside and gave me a good look into the crate. Inside was a golden box. It was plain enough and at either end stood winged creatures who were extending their wings across the lid of the thing. Where their wings met, there was a ball of blinding light. Behind me Joe spoke quietly.
- And Bezaleel made the ark of Shittim wood. And he overlaid it with pure gold within and without. And he made two cherubims of gold. And the cherubims spread out their wings on high, and covered with their wings over the mercy seat. And Moses took and put the testimony into the ark... There are 50 rooms just like this one here, and 50 more that stands empty, waiting to be filled. And in every crate there is a wonder or a horror waiting to be unleashed. And I am the only one who walks here. If what is here was made available, it could be used to convince the christians that their religion was the only true one. Or the muslims. Or any other religion on the face of the earth. If it was opened to the scientists they could leap across a thousand years of slow progress - or it could destroy the world. The dangers are too great to risk, even to reap the rewards of the technologies. There was talk about planting a hydrogen bomb here, in the middle of everything. But I don't think they will. Because what if something down here could survive it? What if something would become stronger from it? So I will continue to walk here alone, as will Jim who is to follow me here. He is only 15, but he has already been marked. When he's old enough they will bring him to me and I will teach him about the wonders and the dangers. I will teach him how to be alone, how to set aside everything human to guard this place. To discard loneliness and fear and joy and live only for this. For the greater good. And then because you don't know what else to do, and ultimately because you just do it.
His voice had sobered completely and I was beginning to worry what he was going to do to me.
- So you understand that I must protect the secresy of this place with any and all means nessesary? His voice was pleading.
- I'd rather know what that means to me before answering. I tried to keep the fear out of my voice. I don't think I succeeded.
He looked puzzled for a little while. Then his face lit up and he laughed.
- No, I'm not going to kill you. I'm not even going to make you forget. I'm going to make you realize that this has all been a dream. A very real dream, but a dream never the less.
After that I remember nothing. Well, it was just a dream as he said. A real dream, but honestly, who could ever believe that such a place could exist.
He stopped talking. Then he shook his head with a half-sad, half-wondering look, and got up.
- Well, thank's for the company.
He pulled the coat closer and left the bar. The young man sat quietly for a while. Then the barmaid walked up to him.
- You want another drink?
- What? No, no. I'll be going home now.
- That man you were talking with ... did you know him?
- No, not really.
- Ah. Well, if you want my opinion, he's crazy. She tapped her temple with her index-finger.
- He's been telling the same story for years ... about that dream of his.
- Hm... The next time he comes in, would you give him a drink from me?
- Sure, she said, but she sounded dubious.
He paid her and left the bar. On the parkinglot outside he climbed into a military jeep and drove out of the town and into the forrest. A few miles in he turned down a gravel road and passed a lot of no trespassing signs before he reached the fence. He opened the gate with the remote and drove thorugh. Another mile up, the road took a sharp turn at a cliff-wall. He punched a sequence on the remote and an entire section of rock swung in with a low, grating sound. Behind it a dark cavern streched. The lights didn't come on untill the rock-gate had closed. He parked the jeep and got into an industrial-sized elevator. When it stopped he walked down an empty concrete corridor untill he reached the steel-door he wanted. As he opened it, the grey-haired, grey-suited man at the computer turned.
- Oh, it's you Jim. Did you have a good night in town? He asked in his whiny voice.
- Yeah, it was pretty good. I had a drink with a man. He told me about this strange dream he had 10 years ago. I think there are some things you haven't told me yet, Joe.
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