The Archeologist
written by _feature_creep_team_


_Half-stumbling, you emerge from the near-black corridor; shale-like sheets of flooring clattering beneath your boots, monitors chiming angrily at the disturbance. You half think to mute them, but don’t dare to turn your mind from the counting of steps and the muttering recitation of turns and junctions; your eyes flitting down to pencil scribbled notes when given half a chance. At last the recitation ends, and as if summoned by the ritualized words you find the correct doorway has appeared before you; marked with a penciled “X.”

_This is officially the deepest you’ve gone, (possibly that anyone has gone, you think with a glimmer of ego) though if not for a faulty helmet seal that record would already be broken. Superstitiously, you check your seals now, just to be certain. Holding strong. Ready to forge ahead.

_You draw your pick, unfurling it with a satisfying click, and float its tip above the “X.” Plaster and dust slide free with a softened crunch, more spilling forth with each swing. Chunk, crunch, clatter, dust piling up on your boots. Almost too easily you’re through, your headlamp rebounding down the newly exposed hallway ahead. A short squeeze, rough edges felt through heavy sleeves, and the boundary is crossed.

_Office doors, perfectly preserved in white, traces of names and numbers pooled on their surface in russet orange. A quick consultation confirms it; this is the place. Shakily, excited, you update your notes, try to remain professional. Harsh flashes of white on white as you document your find; your camera coughing out ghostly white squares, their details blown out almost beyond recognition. Only a few traces of rust to give them texture, form. At the far end, approaching far too slowly in your anticipation, is the find.


_The floors are nearly bare and free of cracks here, still more architecture than geology. It feels almost strange to walk on even ground again, as if everything is too light, almost floating. Flashing and clicking and wheezing out images, you make the length of the hall like some strange creature; which, you suppose, you are, at least in this place. The door is perfect, pourless, like a porcelain mask.

_You remind yourself again to stay professional. Poetics can come later, once the work of the day is done. You snap several more near-white images, record its dimensions with a practiced shorthand. Density read, chemical index, the whole nine yards. No mistakes today. Not like last time.

_Finally ready and thoroughly quantified, you reach for the doorknob. God help you, it actually turns. Powder soft scraping, a sudden threat of catching that quickly passes, and it’s done. The door swings open, and you’re hit by ancient colour. Wood browns, upholstery greens, the shine of metal and glass, (actual glass!) and at the center the thing you came for. Gleaming white, almost gold compared to the dry dullness of the endless corridors which came before it.

_Pristine plastic; and the apple, already bitten.

_Furiously, almost possessed, your camera comes to life again, capturing the chamber and its many colours, textures, reflections, and most of all the pearlized rectangle at its heart. Already you feel the dry biting at your heels, the soft plaster whiteness creeping into your periphery like encroaching frost. Not wanting it to get in the way of your hands as they accelerate from one scanner to the next, you let your mind slide. Merely skimming above the work, and below the fear that’s pouring in from the blackened hall at your back.

_The browns are gone now, the greens barely holding on. The steel and glass shade milky white. Too little time.

_Soft cracks and pops break every surface, throwing up dust and speckled oxide red. Architecture gives way to geology.

_Only the find itself remains now, still white-as-gold, even in the harsh arctic hues of your headlamp. The apple, glossy black, the last detail to consume. Not the broad, soft, dusty black of the stale halls and silent corridors, but the sharp infinity black that only ancient machines could muster. Teetering on the edge of finite now; going to rust. Too little time.

_Soaking in the moment, honoured in a way you can’t put words to, you remind yourself in disbelief that you were here at the end of things. And then, your hands finally still, your instruments silent, you can’t slide any longer. The fear comes back in, far sharper than you imagined, taking your breath.

_The dull pain in your weary leg finally reaching your head, the blinking text of the alert finally catching your eye. A tear; very small, just below your right knee. It seems you had managed to mute the alarms afterall. No mistakes today.

_The dry white bites sharply, turning quickly to pinprick tingling, and then finally to pure absence. The leg is gone, the rest soon to follow. You look to the once perfect rectangle before you, its surface now pockmarked and cracked like a lunar sea; it’s now twice-bitten apple nothing more than a buried stain of rust. Too little time; nothing left to lose.

_With surprising effort, you lift your leaden arms and crack the seal of your helmet. Warm, dust-filled air enters you, almost burning against the creeping cold. You clumsily shake free a glove, press your trembling still-soft fingers to the plastered surface of the device which drew you down here. Forget professionalism. The records are gone now, with the rest of it, and down too deep to be of use anyways.

_With a sharp gasp you slump onto the floor, your back finding purchase against the pale cracked plaster of the desk. Even now, exhausted, pained, and sitting very near the end of things, you find yourself wishing you could bring it all back. To return to the gleaming white and gold of that earlier time; to resurrect the thing in earnest, not merely in records. As if that would lead you anywhere but here again.

_Above your head you hear it split, clatter softly, the apple gone to dust. Your throat catches, dry and stiff, and your headlamp, now laying askew beside you, flickers and gives way to the soft, dry dark. Pins and needles; ghostly absence; stillness; white and oxide red.

_The archeologist gives way to geology.