Lahat ng Kabanata ng Field Team 42: Paranormal Responders: Kabanata 21 - Kabanata 30

Mr. Y looked a lot more like the stereotype of a Man in Black than Mr. X ever had because he dressed more the part. He wore the suit and hat of a 1950’s G-man, as opposed to Mr. X, who, when he wasn’t disguised as a hospital orderly, had always worn Victorian era clothing. Mr. Y was even wearing dark sunglasses in the underground parking garage where they clearly weren’t needed. His skin was the same crayola white as Mr. X’s. He never smiled, though, not at all, whereas Mr. X smiled at every possible conversational opportunity. The two of them seemed very, very opposite from one another.Mr. Y was accompanied by five men in some kind of military uniform, though not from any of the armed services that the general public knew about. They all had large automatic rifles aimed at Mr. X and me. Little, scary red dots veritably crawled over us, more of them on Mr. X than on me, but there were definitely some on me. I realized that meant that, whatever side Mr. Y was on, they didn’t really car

After what I thought might have been about thirty minutes, a door appeared in the tunnel to our right, metal, obviously reinforced, with a small, lit up keypad right next to it. X steered us to it. He propped me up against the wall for support while he handled the keypad. By that time, I had become so weak that right before we saw the door, I had been about to say that I didn’t know how much further I could go. I noticed that my breath was coming in slight gasps as I leaned on the wall, watching X punch code after code into the keypad.Finally, something worked and the door opened with a loud mechanical hiss. I realized it had been hydraulically sealed. A gush of pressurized air came from the other side. X gently collected me and we walked through.On the other side was a train station. We were obviously still underground, but this station looked far larger, grander, and more fancy than any city’s subway station in the mundane world. Stairways went everywhere, both up and down. Dozens

A few hours later, as Friday’s sunrise was approaching, Liz had another, more detailed call with Control. She relayed to us that Control wanted us, if possible, to hunker down there at Alice’s until backup arrived. If circumstances forced us to move from Alice’s, we were to inform Control of our new whereabouts as soon as possible after we relocated. We risked a few forays upstairs Friday morning for more than just restroom use, but we made our camp in the basement to avoid being seen through upstairs windows. We brought a microwave from the kitchen downstairs along with food from the cabinets and upstairs fridge. Mont and Mitch even found a home game system hooked up to a small TV in a guest bedroom. We guys passed the time Friday gaming and eating. I got to have normal male bonding time with Mitch and Mont as if we were colleagues from a regular, normal, mundane job with normal lives. We laughed and smiled a lot. I realized they were the kind of guys I’d be friends with anyway if

Old Man Grimsby’s family had leased a nearby mine to the Good Rock Mining Company. The mine had been closed down for the past 12 years, but there were still buildings there, surrounded by security fencing. The security fencing wasn’t hard to get past. Local kids and thrillseekers had already seen to that with wire cutters. We had taken off from Alice’s in the predawn hours when we were least likely to be spotted. We planned to complete the five-mile hike necessary around sunrise. Alice had offered to lend us her car, but Mont didn’t like the thought of us having it if she wound up needing it. He also didn’t want her car to entangle her with us in the sheriff’s eyes since it hadn’t been proven yet that she was working with us. Alice had also wanted to come with us. Mont denied this request, but it was a very understandable one. She and her fellow townsfolk who wanted to explore and understand the Dirt had been at it their entire lives. For some outsiders to come along and see all the

Internal bleeding. That’s what the doctors said happened to me when I passed out on the train getting here to Underdenver. They think the car crash–never a good thing for anyone to experience–was especially not good for someone still recovering from the damage I’d sustained in Dust Bowl. I may be writing to you again from a hospital, dear reader, but at least this hospital in Underdenver is a lot nicer place. The people are a lot nicer and I have a lot more freedom. Nurses or orderlies come and take me out of my room daily, not only for therapy, but just for the sake of getting out. I’m not just left in my room to mentally rot while my body heals. There’s even a social room to hang out with other patients. The next day after my arrival here at this hospital in Underdenver, X came and got me and personally pushed me in a wheelchair into the social room. (They say they’ll let me try to start walking on my own tomorrow.) It wasn’t too crowded. We were able to find a corner with some co