He was sitting up, on top of a pile of what looked like furs. On second glance, Jim saw that it was a long, fur-lined parka. The parka was resting on a pile of ten or eleven unzipped sleeping bags. He was in a small alcove off of a carpeted hallway. The near side of the hallway was just ordinary interior wall, but the far side was covered in a large panel of dials, indicator lights, and switches.
Above a section of the panel was a window. Jim could see, through the window, a mountainous landscape, totally covered in snow. Closer to the window was blue water. Jim felt the window with the back of his hand; the window was very cold. Off to the left, through the window, Jim could see part of the same building he was in, with huge pillars extending down into the water. He looked away to the left and right. The place was totally deserted. To the left, the hallway extended into shadow. To the right, maybe twenty or thirty yards down, the hallway ended at a door. Jim could see nothing through the door but the white of the distant-snow covered mountains.
"HEY! HEYYYYYY!" he yelled. "ANYBODY HERE? ANYBODY?" No answer. It was a little chilly in the hallway, but nothing like outside, he suspected. Maybe about 65 degrees.
He looked at a section of the panel in front of him. The panel extended many yards both to the right and the left. A few steps away was a bubble-shaped . . . well, it looked like a helmet, connected to the console through a long tube at the top, like an old deep-sea diver's helmet. At various stations on the wall there were writing desks, totally bare at the moment, a few ordinary keyboards, and one or two of what looked like fax machines.
He found an intercom station on the wall and pressed a button. "Hello? Hello?" Nothing.
Jim wandered off down the hallway to the left. A few yards down was a wide spot off the hall that looked like a lounge, carpeted, with uncomfortable-looking white wire chairs. A little farther down was stairway down, then a wide ramp circling down.
Jim decided the place was decorated in "Early 70's Airport."
Jim checked his pockets. Comb. Swiss-Army knife. No wallet. No money. No coins--wait! One coin, with "HELVETICA" stamped on it under "20." He walked back to where he had been lying and checked the pockets of the long fur parka. Nothing was in the pockets. He checked between each sleeping bag. On the bottom, under them all, was a big, handwritten, bound manuscript. It wasn't his handwriting, he saw immediately. Or Rick's. Or Sharon's, or anyone he knew. Further back was a little section, in a different hand and pen, in French--and a part in German--and a part in Russian?
Fri Jan 12 14:53:23 2001
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