Alex woke up in an unfamiliar setting. She looked around in confusion as she tried to piece together where she was. Around her was a number of smiling faces.
“What happened?” she asked scratching her head.
“Sorry, Alex, you were taking too long,” Milo said.
“Milo, how could you? My life is ruined now!” she screamed in a panic. The outcome of her life flashed before her eyes.
“Alex, before you go analyzing this to death, which I know you’ll do, just remember that we took you against your will. That way, if you ever get caught, you will not be held accountable.”
“You realize they can track us, right? Guardians could be here any minute to take me in.”
“I wouldn’t count on that, look around at where we are,” he said with a smile.
Alex looked around, but did not recognize the décor. “What is this place? Where have you taken me?” she asked.
“Alex, welcome to Incarus,” Mara said.
Incarus was an underground village formed amid a repurposed subway system. The village was comprised of a network of people who coexisted among an extensive labyrinth of tunnels and makeshift dwellings. The poor ventilation and moisture caused the entire place to reek of a foul stench.
“It stinks down here,” Alex said.
“Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.”
“I don’t find that comforting.”
“Come on, let me show you guys around.”
They left the small room and descended down a dark tunnel in the abandoned subway system. As they were completely engulfed in darkness, Milo gave a voice command to his access pod and instantly a bright light lit the way for them.
“Afraid of the dark?” Mara teased.
“I have technology to solve this problem, why not use it?”
“What if one day you can’t rely on your technology, then what do you do?”
Milo didn't have an answer.
The beam of light shone outward from the access pod attached to Milo’s arm, enabling them to see their footing. Milo raised his arm, shining the circle of light onto the graffiti-laden tiled walls.
“The graffiti is a nice touch, did you guys do that yourselves?” Milo remarked.
“No, it was here long before we arrived and I suspect it will be here long after we’re gone.”
“You know, when we all become extinct and some new civilization discovers this place a few thousand years from now, they’ll probably draw the erroneous conclusion that we’re all a bunch of taggers.”
Alex and Milo admired the site as if they had discovered a time capsule from the past. The old subway system showed its age at every turn. The century old bricks were cracked and crumbling, and the furnishings were far from modern.
Their footsteps echoed off the walls, drowning out the other noises that lingered in the distance – dripping water, creaking pipes, and squeaking rodents.
“How many people live down here?” Alex asked.
“Exactly 150. Once we have more than 150, we divide into two separate colonies.”
“Where does the new group relocate to?”
“There are many abandoned places all over the city. In fact, there are entire cities of yore that have been discarded like trash.”
“Why 150 though?” Milo asked
“That’s Dunbar's number.”
“Who’s Dunbar?”
Alex was familiar with the theory and offered to explain it to her friend. “Robin Dunbar was a British anthropologist who theorized that groups of individuals should limit themselves to 150.”
“Why?”
“It has to do with the size of the human neocortex, it can only process stable interpersonal relationships with 150 individuals, so groups larger than that begin to become unstable and may eventually break down.”
“Interesting.”
When they arrived at the next station, a row of lights hung overhead, illuminating the way. They were spaced out every twenty feet, but some of them were burnt out or broken, which allowed dark shadows to conceal many nooks and corridors.
“This is the main hub of Incarus,” Mara said, eager to show off what she and her companions had worked so hard to build. Alex and Milo were astonished at how the place could even exist in such a modern climate.
They came upon the first room on the tour. Mara flicked on the light and said. “We call this room the vault.”
Inside the large room was a mountain of neatly stacked bills, reaching as high as the ceiling and as far back as twenty metres.
“What is this stuff?” Milo asked.
“This is what our money used to be, they’re called dollars.”
“Is this paper?”
“Although it was sometimes referred to as ‘paper money’, it’s actually made from cotton.”
The group seemed oddly fascinated by it. Mara waited by the door as Alex and Milo slowly walked in and inspected the outdated currency. Alex picked up a stack of bound hundred dollar bills. The yellow wrapper, which bundled the bills together, had the value of $10,000 stamped on it. Alex’s eyes scanned the room. Based on the height and depth of the large mountain of money, she determined there was well over three trillion dollars there.
“Why do you have all this?” she asked.
“A long time ago, when the banking system failed, a new currency was introduced – the unit. It was a unifying global currency that made these old bills obsolete. Once everything switched over to this new eCurrency, large stashes of these bills were forgotten about or abandoned. We happen to be scavengers, utilizing anything as a resource, so we collected as much as we could and brought it back here.”
“What do you use it for?” Milo asked.
“We burn it.”
“So was this a lot of money back in the day?”
“With this amount of money, you could probably buy an entire country.”
The tour continued. They arrived at the next room and Mara flicked on the light switch. A large warehouse-sized room lit up, displaying rows upon rows of books. The expression on Alex and Milo’s faces showed they were genuinely impressed, which was a difficult thing to do.
“You guys are looking at the largest known library in the world, thought to be the last of its kind. Inside you’ll find periodicals, medical journals, text books, fiction, non-fiction, maps, you name it.”
“Wow, this stuff belongs in a museum,” Alex commented.
“Speaking of old documents, I brought the papers from Mara’s apartment.”
“You did? Why didn’t you tell me before?” Alex said.
“I forgot. Besides, there wasn’t really an opportune time before.”
Milo reached into his bag and handed the papers to Mara. “I believe these belong to you.”
Mara had a peculiar look on her face as she studied the lost documents.
“I have no recollection of these,” she said. “You say these were found in the floor of my old apartment?”
“That’s what I’m told.”
Alex asked to see the documents since she had not had a thorough look at them in the apartment. “Yes, these are the documents I found. It says here that Maxim Morrison has plans to construct a galactic space station.”
“How old are these documents?”
“I have no idea. Like I said, that part of my memory was wiped so I have no knowledge of these plans.”
“At the State of the Union Address, the Leader mentioned a space-exploration program. These appear to be the plans for the ship, so I don’t see what the big secret is.”
“Mara, you said your team had a lot of electronics we could use to build a dream recorder. Were you able to recover the list of items I provided when we were in prison?”
“That’s next on the tour. Follow me, I’ll take you to our equipment room and show you what we have.”
“I don’t understand,” Milo said as he trailed behind. “What’s going on?”
“I’ll explain on the way.”