By walking slowly with arms outstretched, they mapped out the room. One end contained a pile of soft, porous rock, the same rock they had drilled through, the same rock that collapsed underneath them. The other side of the room, interestingly, had windows. The windows were covered with metal mullions. The side with the rock seemed to slope upwards, but the ragged pile was too steep to climb.
“Well, we’re trapped from the looks of it.” Tiyana said, pointing out the obvious. She meant to get a dialogue going where someone would suggest what they should do.
“What looks? I can’t see a thing.” Hunter retorted.
“It is pitch black.” Hongo chimed in.
“Let’s punch it.” Hunter suggested.
They couldn’t see Hongo’s face in the dark, but it bore a puzzled expression.
“I’m sorry, punch what, dear?” Tiyana replied.
“The wall. If the drill’s still pointing west toward this wall with the barred windows, then lets fire it up! We don’t know what’s behind us or what’s to our left or right, but we know that there is something behind those windows. Hongo, can this baby still run?”
Hongo was stunned. “I do not know, Mr. Price.”
“Well, let’s find out.”
Hongo had a number of Tanzanians working for him that he had brought from the Olduvai Gorge digsite, but he tried to include Egyptians in the work as much as possible in order to promote camaraderie. The last thing that he wanted to deal with was feuding between the Egyptian and Tanzanian workers. Geb and Haji wound up getting included often because they spoke passable English. Andwele got included because he had a long working relationship with Hongo, he was physically strong, and he did not make many mistakes.
“Geb, Haji, Andwele! Let us go look at the drill. We will inspect it and try to make it run.” With that, the four of them were blindly combing the drill, trying to find out if they could get it started again.
Tiyana quickly joined them. Hunter helped as much as he could.
After about an hour, they met. Tiyana spoke, “The machine’s integrity isn’t compromised too badly. I think we can start it, but we have a problem. The grippers use hydraulic jacks to push off the tunnel walls. Without tunnel walls to push off of, the machine won’t go anywhere, it will just spin and cut through thin air.”
After a long drawn out silence, Tiyana spoke again, “Any ideas?”
Hunter spoke up, “Well, the machine’s only a couple feet from the wall and it’s pointed in the right direction. What if we unscrewed the cutter head and let it fall away from the machine onto the wall?”
Another long silence, “That could work.” Tiyana said softly.
“Yes, that could work.” Hongo chimed in.
“It’s not going to be as easy as all that though. The cutter head isn’t screwed on, its fastened with rivets. We’ll need to drill each rivet. We’ve got a drill that will work, but it’s going to take a while, especially in the dark. Also, we don’t have anything to punch the rivets out with. We’ll just have to drill them and then fire up the machine and hope that the rivets are weak enough and that the gears vibrate enough to shake them loose.” Tiyana explained.
She went on, “We’ve got the sandwiches that Shenouda brought for lunch and we’ve got the chai and we’ve got a few gallons of water. Those aluminum barrels that they haul water and chai around in are practically indestructible. Unfortunately, those supplies will not last us long. If we are going to do something, we’ve got to do it now.”
With that, they all got to work. Hongo and Andwele operated the drill on the rivets. They had no concept of time in the dark pit. The tiny light on the end of Hongo’s battery-operated drill barely lit the rivets.
Meanwhile, up on the surface, a full-blown crisis broke out. The remainder of the digsite crew threw everything aside and used all of the excavation equipment that they had to furiously dig in search of the lost tunnel boring team. Calls went out all over the world. Hunter’s affluent parents quickly offered to spare no expense to anyone in the world who could get to Dahshur, investigate the situation, and offer information on how deep the crew was buried, what chances they had of surviving, how long it would take to extricate them, or how exactly to extricate them. Droves of engineering experts booked last-minute flights to Dahshur.
They had no way to count the passage of time, but most of the crew thought that the day had ended. The crew members who had nothing to do grew increasingly frightened as time crept on. They heard the loud drill and they heard Hongo and Andwele’s voices, but nothing else. Eventually, Hongo finished.
“The last one is done. I think it is time.” Hongo said to the Prices.
“I don’t know if all the motors will work, but the engine seems okay. I hope we get at least the starter motor to work. The wires connecting the battery to the starter solenoid haven’t broken, for whatever that’s worth. Should we go ahead and start it?” Tiyana asked.
“Yes.” Hunter and Hongo replied in unison.
“Okay, here goes nothing.”
The whirring noise of the starter motor made a brief cameo appearance before the deafening roar of the main engine filled the room. Another less constant noise filled the room. The rivets holding the cutter head to the frame of the machine rattled in their sockets. Soon, with a creak and a crash, the cutter head fell. It hit the wall with the disc cutters spinning. The top of the wall where the disc cutters made initial contact gave way in moments. The bottom of the wall crumbled beneath the cutters and the weight of the cutter head. As the head separated from the rest of the boring machine, the cutters lost power. The power loss did not matter because by the time the cutters stopped spinning, a gaping hole had been torn in the wall. The crew merely needed to shut the engine down, climb the rubble, and walk into the adjacent room.
As they explored their new surroundings, they realized how tired they were. Unbeknownst to everyone trapped, it was close to midnight. Hunter spoke up, “There are beds here. These recesses that go into the wall, they are, or at least they used to be beds. This must be some sort of underground barracks.”
“Or catacombs.” Tiyana disgustedly replied.
“I wasn’t going to say that. Hey, there are scratchings on the wall here, just lines of scratches, all in a row.” Hunter remarked.
“This was a prison.” Hongo said softly. “They were counting their time down here.”
Knowing of Hongo’s military past and further knowing of his reluctance to discuss it, Hunter and Tiyana remained quiet.
Eventually, Hunter took charge, “Look, there’s enough space for all of us, lets lay Shenouda down in one of these low spaces and then everyone pick one and try to get some sleep.” Everyone was too tired to argue.
They gave Shenouda a triple dose of aspirin from the first aid kit. Tiyana and Hunter picked a rather large wall recess and spooned close, taking off their shirts and jackets and laying them over the top of their upper torsos. They stayed warm by keeping the bare skin of Hunter’s chest next to the bare skin of Tiyana’s back. No one slept well that night.
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Dawn of the Epoch
ActionHunter called himself an archaeologist, but he was a modern day treasure hunter. Tiyana was a scientist devoted to her craft. They were passionate people, wholly devoted to their work. Neither of them had time for love. Neither of them could resist...
Chapter IV - Stumbling in the Dark
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