“Jones!” Watson said, his hands shaped around his mouth. ”Are you fine?”

There was no response. Watson doubted for a moment a response would come at all. He frantically grabbed pieces of rubble, trying to force his way through the stack of rocks. He estimated that the rubble wall was about a meter or two thick, and he Watson panicked.

“Jones!” He said again. His hands were getting dirty.

“...’m fine!” A reply came from the other side. “Fuck, what just happened?”

Watson breathed out. ”Thank god, Jones.” He said. “Can you hear us?”

“You think I’d answer if I didn’t?”

Watson stood up and dusted his pants. “Um, good point.” He said.

Lisa stepped next to Watson. “Jones, do you see a way back?”

“Nope.” He said. “But I see a way down. I’ll go down this way.”

“That’s a bad idea, Jones.” Watson said, looking worried. “Just wait there, we’ll get you.”

“Nah, screw that. You aren’t getting past this pile of rubble anyways.” Jones answered. “You kids go down your way. I’m going down.” His voice grew fainter with each word.

“Jones? Jones!” Watson shouted. But there was no reply.

Watson turned towards his party. “We have to go get him!”

Ben cursed under his breath. ”A prick as always.” He said. “I disagree, Watson.”

Watson stared wide-eyed at Ben. “What do you mean?”

“We should get going, is what I mean.” He said. “He’s right. We aren’t getting past the rubble.”

Lisa avoided Watson’s puppy-like gaze. ”I think Ben’s right.” She said. “We can’t just dally around here. We need to find what we came down here for.”

Watson looked desperate. ”You can’t be serious. We’re just going to abandon him?”

“We aren’t abandoning anyone. He went down on his own volition.” Ben said, glaring at Watson. “And honestly, I’m done trying to give a shit.”

“But… But…” Watson said.

Lisa clasped Watson’s shoulder. ”Watson.” She tightened her grip. “We can’t just abandon our mission for one person.”

“I can’t believe you’d say that.” Watson said, teary-eyed. “I thought we’re all about helping people. You guys aren’t better than him, aren’t you?”

“Don’t say that again.” Ben gnashed his teeth. He breathed out. “Whatever. Watson, you can stay back if you like. But we have to get going.”

Lisa led the charge, wordlessly pointing at the other two to follow. She, and Fodder #2, gave Watson a pitiful glance over their shoulders as they turned to face the dark hallway.

Jones stepped carefully, knowing every last step could, well, be his last.

He couldn’t make much progress with the danger of traps looming above him. Like peeking into a maiden’s panties, he had to make sure it wasn’t packing a bulge. Thus, security was of utmost importance. Last carpet he’d uncovered had a large package swinging downwards- a log, aimed squarely (or roundly) at his buttocks. Jones wasn’t the bottom kind of guy, unfortunately. He managed to dodge it in time.

So far, it hadn’t been that bad. The traps escalated with each floor, but he hadn’t encountered anything as close as the steel ball yet. He really hoped this type of ball didn’t come in sets. But treading carefully had taken a toll on his speedrunning mentality. Why do things slowly, when you could do it quickly?

And that where the books came in. So far, he’d found two new rooms. Both were laced with a couple caltrops, but nothing too bad. They were unique in the sense that somehow, they made a secret Illuminati hideout as boring as a library. Their selection in literature had a lot of improvements to make. So far, he’d found the books useful only as a pack of tissues.

Well, besides the playboy magazines under the bed. Somebody had good taste in milfs. Thank god there sure were a lot of tissues lying around.

But he found a better way to use the books.

Using a carpet, he dragged a stack of books out of the rooms and into the unexplored hallway. Methodically, he threw a book a meter ahead, then two meters, then three. The third book landed with a click, and two flamethrowers folded out of the walls, burning the book to ashes.

He smiled, and continued this routine, advancing meter by meter, dropping the milli.

The escalation of traps became clear. Before, they had a couple stake launchers, some spikes, ball bearings on steps and all- but now, he was faced with acid spitters, fork launchers, and even a couple turrets. Thankfully for Jones, the book trick worked perfectly, and he proceeded without trouble.

About a hundred meters ahead, he saw a large opening.

Watson fiddled his fingers and stepped from wall to wall, deeply sunken into contemplation. His eyes were wet, his knees were weak, and his arms heavy. Staring at the ground, he periodically glanced at the rubble and chewed on his fingers.

Watson was terrified. He wasn’t ready for any of this. He never was. In fact, he didn’t want to be here. He hated the darkness, he hated the damp air, and the sounds terrified him. Each clink, each crack, each snap, all filled with so much dreadful possibility.

He knew the others were talking sense. He should’ve just went with them.

Watson was a coward after all. He knew that best. Jones was right. What could he do alone? It would be best to just give up. Run away. Maybe join the others, maybe climb to the surface. Perhaps Fodder #1 needed help with his wound. He’d gone up earlier. There was no shame in that.

But he couldn’t just sit back. Watson rubbed his pistol. His grandfather wouldn’t be happy if he ran. Watson didn’t think he himself would be either.

Then what could he do? He wracked his head around, giving it a good smack against a wall for good measure. But nothing came up. No brilliant ideas. He looked around, looking for some solution, when his eyes rested on the steel ball they’d run from.

It’d gone through the wall, crashing about three meters deep into it. The rubble was about two thick. Also, what did Fodder #1 carry in his pack? The thing he carried back to the surface?

Watson didn’t hesitate. He ran up the stairs as fast as his legs would carry him.

Jones neared the opening. This one, unlike the others, didn’t have a door. Instead, it was stylized with a stone archway. A gust of air blew past him, bringing with it the smell of sulfur. Past the opening was a large clearing. A crevasse.

The crevasse was as its widest point about fifty meters wide. Jones couldn’t tell how deep it was, but he didn’t like his chances. The spots of crimson really didn’t help that feeling, and neither did the gushing warm air coming up the crevasse.

Placed in front of him was a bridge. One of those old-timey rope things. It creaked under the gusts of wind, and swung back and forth. He wondered how Watson would react to the bridge. Piss his pants off, probably.

He heard a worrying sound behind him. A thunderous crackle, followed by a quake. But after moments of waiting for something to happen, nothing did. Shrugging, he ventured onwards.

Stepping onto the oaken panels, he confirmed that they were solid. The rope holding it together wasn’t cheap either. It was a thick, meaty bunch of metal threads, all clumped together.

Jones quickly paced across the bridge.

On the other side was another opening. This one was twice as wide as the other one, and designed to look like a maw. Threatening.

Beyond it was a circular room, clearly manmade. The walls were smooth and curved, and the open space resembled a half-sphere. Jones approximated about twenty meters in diameter and fifteen in height. The floor, besides the first two steps, were made up of tiles, spiralling into a circle. The tiles were engraved with runes.

Jones made a mistake when he didn’t use his book technique.

He stepped in, only to fall through the tile. Losing his balance, Jones sank through, chunks of rubble joining him on the way down.

Thankfully, the fall wasn’t too deep. About ten meters in, he splashed into a deep pool of water. There was no way out. The pool was about three meters deep, so he couldn’t stand in it, either. His only luck was that a sizable piece of rubble was floating next to him. It supported his weight, but it seemed to sink a little, minute by minute.

Jones sighed. He didn’t expect rescue. The others were likely on a completely different section of the underground base. By then, he’ll have drowned, or frozen to death. Nobody would come for him. He didn’t think they really cared anyways.

Besides, he made it a personal rule not to expect anything from anyone. He had enough experience dealing with people to know not to.

He rummaged through his bag. At least he had all the time in the world and a playboy magazine to keep him warm. His last glimmers of hope faded as he realized the magazine came apart from being soaked.

And they wondered why he was an atheist.

Jones had been lying there for about ten minutes.

Suddenly, he began hearing sounds. At first, they were very distant. The odd thing was that they sounded familiar. The arrows clashing against the wall. The log clinking on a chain. The acid splashing away. All sounds of the traps he’d traversed.

His suspicions were confirmed when he heard a pathetic yelp echoed a hundredfold. Jones would recognize that shout anywhere. It belong to Watson. Astounded, Jones looked towards the ceiling.

Five minutes later, Watson’s face popped up. He was pale. The rescue would’ve been more inspirational were it not for his hero’s puke splashing against the pool he swam in.

Jones’s eyes widened. He struggled to pick his jaw back up. “Watson?” He asked. “Is that you?”

“It’s me.” Watson’s cheeks bulged again. “I’m here.” He spat another batch out.

“Why the hell are you here?” Jones’s mouth creased to a grin.

“I… Uh, couldn’t leave you alone.” Watson paused to pant. ”I split up to find you.”

“How the fuck did you get past that rubble?” Jones rubbed his temple.

“I went to the surface… To the car. Fodder #1’s bag had a grenade, I remembered.” Watson said. “I blasted the iron ball free. It crashed into the rubble and cleared the path.”

“Is that what I heard?” Jones giggled. “Watson, I underestimated you.”

Watson tried to smile, but he went sick again.

“You gonna get me out now or what?” Jones said. “Hope you’ve got a plan for this one.”

Watson pulled out a coil of rope from his bag. “I thought you said this would be useless.”

“Two things I’m wrong about today, then.” Jones smirked. ”I’ll let you use the boy’s bathroom now. You got something to tie that to?”

Watson looked around. “I think I can tie it to the bridge.” He said. Moments later, he returned, lowering the length down the pool. It just barely tipped the water’s surface.

After that, everything went smoothly. It turned out the runes had to be stepped on in order. Jones guessed that it spelled out some name, but they found a better way to proceed. By tying a bundle of books to Watson’s rope, they tested which bricks were safe to stand on. Half an hour later, they crossed the room, and reacher yet another opening.

This one led into a temple. The walls were lined with tapestry and portraits. They soon figured out that the pictures were of past Illuminati leaders. Upon this discovery, Jones found the biggest one, and pissed on it.

After looking around for traps, they found none. The books here were far more interesting than those before. They consisted of notes and journals, all belonging to high-ranking members of the organization.

The two began shifting through the books.

“Did you know they tried to lace Coke with LSD?” Jones said, breaking the silence. ”This shit’s pretty crazy, Watson. I hadn’t heard of half this shit before.”

“Jones.” Watson said, his eyes glued to the pages. “Come over here. I think I found it.”

“Already?” Jones looked at the mountains of books piled in the room.

Watson faced Jones. “Well, I used to work in a library.” Jones sneezed. “I figured out their system… It’s ordered by date. This shelf is until 1960.” Watson said.

Jones walked over. ”So what is it?”

Watson held up the book. It was a leather-bound journal. “The diary of Lewis Greene.” He read. “The last leader of the Illuminati.”

Jones snatched it away. “Let me see that.”

“Check the last fifteen pages. That’s the section about ‘the Nevada Project’.” Watson said, pointing at the backside.

Jones flipped through the yellow-stained pages. “‘The Nevada Project’.” Jones read aloud. “Started in 1938.” He stared at those words. “I thought this was during the fifties?”

“It ended at 1959.” Watson replied. “Just read it.”

Jones silently scanned through.

“The Nevada Project was greenlit after a coinflip. It was initially a project to research teleportation, but it made little to no progress in the early stages. That changed in 1947, with the Roswell incident.”

“The government acquired alien material. We managed to influence the higher-ups into giving us the material, which proved crucial to our research. It ended up completely overhauling out target. We now focused on spacetime travel.”

“Dr. Steiner headed the research. A refugee from Operation Paperclip, he was a genius. He theorized that the two devices we acquired were an alien battery and a ‘Space-Bender’. He deduced that the latter was used to create wormholes.”

“During our research, many blackouts occured in the vicinity. This is when we learned the power output required for a the creation of a wormhole would be roughly three hundred times the annual power consumption of the US.”

“But only one of these batteries was functional. The rest- about a hundred- had been completely destroyed during the crash. We didn’t have the tech to understand how to fix them, so the mission parameters were changed.”

“Instead of creating Wormholes, Dr. Steiner came up with a theory. Using the device, he could transmit short messages through space. But there was one limitation. The range.”

“We couldn’t transmit messages through a large distance. Not even from here to China.”

“But he figured out a way to make it work. To put it simply- I don’t understand either- He managed to make in send messages to parallel worlds. Thus, we had a device that couldn’t contact aliens, but could contact parallel earths.”

“The second breakthrough was in stabilization. Using the drive, he could stabilize wormholes. If others initiated contact, we could sustain it for about half a minute with our power capacity.”

“Thus, we created an anchor. At July 19th 1959, we completed the device. After some extensive checks, the test was scheduled for November 5th, 1959.”

“The rest is history. That day, the US experienced the greatest power outage in its history. We strained all electrical lines, and even drained the entire alien battery. The experiment worked. Somebody connected to us. We didn’t understand, though.”

“I wasn’t there that day, but I heard them through the radio. What came through was hostile.”

“The Lizardmen soon wiped out our ranks. Their numbers were tiny, but we weren't ready. They took over the facility and slowly wiped us out. Their ability to infiltrate is incredible. I can’t trust anyone anymore.”

“I leave this behind in the vain hope that perhaps someone will find this and revive our organization. There is a way to beat them, if it isn’t too late. It’s simple. They can’t make another gate. We don’t know why. They’re keeping Dr. Steiner for that reason.”

“Lewis Greene. January, 1960. Long Live the Illuminati.”

Jones closed the book.

“That was something.” He said. “You done checking the place for other clues?” He looked at Watson.

Watson was in the process of stuffing diaries into his bag. “I think I got most of the stuff.”

“Let’s get back to the others, then.” Jones said.