The Forbidden City

I was standing in front of the old, rusty gate. The guardhouse was in ruins, covered in thick vegetation. "Probably not a good idea to spend the night here...", I murmured to myself, but I had no choice. The sky was getting dark, and I needed shelter. I tried to push the large gate, but it barely budged. Years of vegetation growth and rust have cemented the gate to the ground. I found a smaller gate at one side and managed to pry the latch open with my makeshift crowbar.

 

Today is 18th August 2079, 50 years have passed since the war between the United Federation and the Korean Offensive. My name is Jason Baker, I'm an engineer working for SynTech, a company known for its excellence in developing military weapons technology. I along with my five colleagues were on-board a chartered flight to Beijing when something went wrong, and we crash landed during this jungle. The pilots and our two colleagues were dead and another one succumbed to his injuries. So only three of us are left now… Me, Jack and Venkat. We set up a type of camp near the crash site. Neither the compass was working nor the radio, forget the GPS. I ventured out in search of food and water and well… lost my way, and here I am.

 

Opening the gate, I found myself standing on a huge campus. The buildings were mostly in ruins, but by their size and architecture, it was easy to understand the buildings were of late 20th Century. Judging by the expanse of the campus, I deduced that it was university or scientific research base.

 

"Hey, who's there?"

 

I was lost in my thoughts when a hoarse voice startled me. An old man, his face covered in white, flowing beard, was standing under a tree. He had a spear in his hands and was wearing deerskin, just like the primitive man. I was astonished to hear the English language from such a weird looking man. He started walking towards me.

I sensed danger. That spear could kill me. The only weapon I have is a makeshift crowbar made of two short tree branches which will do little harm to him. "If he tries to harm me, I will not give up without a fight", I said to myself. He came near me, I put my hands up to show that I'm unarmed.

He stopped and asked, in the same hoarse voice, "Who are you? What are you doing around here?”, he had a ferocious look in his eyes… I narrated my story to him. He seemed to believe my story. "Come with me", he said. There was something in his voice that compelled me to follow him. We went inside a building, walking through dry and rotting leaves that covered the ground. The floor inside the building was clean, but the walls were pockmarked with small and medium-sized shallow holes. "Are those bullet holes?", I wondered.

 

I was standing inside some sort of hall. On one corner was some half-burnt wood, and to my astonishment, some weapons! 1 submachine gun, 2 pistols, and some knives, spears, etc. The old man was rubbing his knife over some stones and it was generating sparks. Soon there was a nice fire which illuminated the whole room. I sat near the fire and asked the man, "You are an old man who wears deerskin, live in a weird place like this, and yet you are armed with weapons and speak English! Who are you? What happened to this place?" The old man sat there for some moments in silence, suddenly he gave out a sigh and began speaking…

 

Not so long ago, this place was a thriving town, known by the name of Dunwallis. There were industries, parks, schools, hotels... Where we are now was once a renowned university. Students from foreign countries would come here to pursue higher education. This town was the central hub for bright scholars, researchers, philosophers, and scientists. There was education, employment… The town was going through its peak period. My name is Hector Payne, I was a professor and a research fellow at this very university. Although from outside it looked like any other university, very few were aware of its dark secret. It was a research facility for the government, we research fellows developed new weapons technology. After many years of hard work, we were finally very close to our target, to develop a very powerful EMP weapon… One that sends out electromagnetic pulse waves to disrupt any kind of electronic gadgets. It ran on solar power, so the need for nuclear fuel was eliminated. Our prototype model demonstrated extraordinary results and the government approved funds for a large-scale installation at a place not very far from here. The locals were told that a communications center was being set up. After two years, our installation was almost complete when World War III started… I fled to my country. Years after, when I returned, I found this city by trekking across the jungle. It seemed, everyone else had forgotten that a city was there once… Almost the whole city was carpet bombed, only this university stood somehow intact. I was devastated. There were skeletons strewn everywhere… I managed to recover this diary from a locker… It was of my colleague, Scott. Here it is, read the last entry.

 

He handed me an old diary covered in a tattered brown cover. My hands were trembling. I took the diary. The pages were faded, but the writing was still legible. The first page mentioned "Scott Munro, Research Fellow, Dunwallis University". I began to read the last entry…

 

June 6, 2027: We are hearing distant gunfire… They are coming for us, but we will not give up without a fight. Our installation is complete, and it is the perfect time to use it. We all gathered at the control room for a final check today… The Director says they will raid Dunwallis tomorrow morning, we will give them hell.

 

"The outcome is in front of you", Hector's voice choked. "There was a fight, you can see the bullet holes in the walls. They fired the weapon, wiping out their enemy as well as themselves, it was a suicidal attempt…The bombers carpet bombed the whole town before getting into the range of EMP field. No one got to know about the incident, because there was nobody alive to tell. World War III ended soon, taking millions of lives. Everyone forgot that here once stood a town… The forest hid it's secret until I found it. I've been living here since. These weapons were kept in my locker… I've been hunting deer and storing water from rainfall… This town made me who I am, I will never leave it, again…"

 

"What Happened to the weapon?", I inquired, still not believing what I heard.

 

"It is still there. And it's still working. It had huge solar panels installed on top. Though most have been covered by vegetation, some are still exposed to sunlight, so it still emits a faint signal that disrupts any kind of electronic equipment in its range. It's effective even at night… Tell me, did your radio, GPS work? Check out your compass, you'll understand.", Hector paused to catch his breath. After many years he was talking to a civilized man. I was amazed that he didn't forget his language in all these years.

 

I took out my compass, the needle was going crazy. The radio gave out nothing but static… "If you want to get out from here, you'll need to destroy that weapon. It's the only way. I'll show you the tower… But you'll have to take it down yourself." I made up my mind to bring down that tower with the help of Jack and Venkat, but the only problem that we were low on resources… I fell asleep thinking about a solution and barely believing I ended up here.

 

The chirping of birds woke me up in the next morning. Coming out of the building, I saw the most beautiful sight in my life!! The eastern sky was bright red in color… Hector was standing outside, surrounded by birds. Some perched on his shoulders, some even on his head. He was feeding them fruit seeds. For the first time, I saw him smiling. He is looking just like a loving grandfather… I just stood there, admiring the many shades in the personality of the man. Yesterday he was looking aggressive, then he told me the story of his life, and now this sight… Surely, he has befriended nature. It was after an hour or so when he came back. We climbed the rooftop of the building through a seemingly endless flight of stairs. It was then I understood how large the forest was.

 

We were standing above what seemed like a green ocean! The forest spread as far as I could see. Sounds of birds chirping, monkeys chattering, etc. rocked the forest. I could see the crash site from the rooftop, as well as the smoke, rising from the campfire. Jack and Venkat were there. They must be worried about me. I turned to Hector and said, "I'm going to get out of this jungle. See that smoke? My two colleagues are there… Together, we'll destroy the weapon and will get out from here. You show me the weapon… I'll get the job done." Hector pointed his finger towards the western horizon. Yes, I could see a huge saucer like thing sitting atop a lighthouse type building. The green canopy couldn't reach such a great height.

 

By afternoon, Me, Jack, Venkat were sitting with Hector around the fire. Jack and Venkat were devastated, both physically and mentally. It took them a while to sense what was going around here. Hector had to tell them the same story he had told me, which puzzled them even more. We decided to call it a day as getting acclimatized with this place was the priority. But something was not right about this place, and I was keen to get out of here as fast as possible.

 

It was pitch black in front of me when I woke up. It seemed like my whole body has turned into a rock. I realized I was tied to a chair like structure with my eyes blindfolded. A strange muffled hissing sound was heard in the distance. I tried to move but couldn't budge a bit.

 

A heart-wrenching cry of agony tore across the room before coming to an abrupt halt, simultaneously with a blunt thud, sending down a chill down my spine. "Where am I? Where are my friends? Was that Venkat's voice? Is he hurt? Is he… alive?"

 

Suddenly my blindfold was removed, unveiling a gruesome sight. Venkat lay on the floor near a fireplace, his right arm severed below his elbow, his eyes lifeless, with horror painted on his smashed face. A few of skeletons were strewn on the cobbled floor. A creature stood beside me, with a scimitar-like blade in one arm and a sledgehammer in the other. His eyes gleamed ferociously in the dimly lit room, his expression registering a feral joy like a primitive man. Hector!

 

Before I could speak, Hector started laughing like a maniac. His wild, inhuman laughter echoed in the small room we were held captive in. "What do you think? You can destroy the weapon so easily? Look… Look at all these skeletons! All those who came here before you ended up here, and so will you. I designed that weapon, I will not let anyone lay hands on it !", suddenly he grabbed an unconscious Jack and dragged him to the fireplace, dumping him in a position such that his tied hands were directly on the glowing charcoal which spilled at the bottom of the fireplace. A muffled scream escaped from my throat as the stench of burning flesh filled the room. Hector smiled at me cruelly, picked red-hot charcoal with a tong and brought it closer to my face. "A little more suffering before death… Eh, leader? Alas! The other fellow is already dead", his voice hissing with rage. I had lost all emotions at this point and was ready for submission to any pain that would follow. I felt the searing heat of the charcoal close to my cheek, and looked at Hector, straight in his eyes. Those eyes… glowing in anticipation to hear the scream of the tortured subject…

 

A pair of smoking hands grabbed Hector's throat from behind in a vice-like grip. He started choking and frantically tried to free himself, but in vain. After struggling violently for about 30 seconds, his old wretched body hung limp down his throat, which was still held in a pincer-like grip by Jack.

Jack threw the corpse of Hector aside and picking the scimitar, cut off the vines tied to my hands and feet. I felt the blood rushing into my numb muscles. It finally dawned upon me. The fire from the charcoal burnt the vines from Jack's hands. He was conscious all along, his superior military training enabled him to endure the pain of his hands being burnt while acting like he was already dead. We got out of there fast, it was a room adjacent to the hall we slept. Hector drugged us during dinner and planned to execute us all… And judging by his behavior in that room, it was evident that he had turned into a cannibal. There was no way to destroy the EMP weapon now, as the only person with a credible knowledge on explosives, Venkat, was no longer with us.

 

What followed was an inhuman trek across the jungle in search of a stream that would lead to a river, and consequently to the sea. It took two days to find a small rivulet inside the dense jungle, which led to a river meandering slowly through deep, marshy lowlands Avoiding numerous poisonous snakes, crocodiles, and insects, we hobbled through the dense jungle running alongside the river, occasionally coming across ruins of some buildings, for what seemed like eternity. The compass needle was a bit stable now, indicating that we are moving out of range of the weapon, however, the radio emitted only static. Perhaps it was on the afternoon of the fifth day since our crash that a large swathe of white sand greeted us as we emerged from the jungle. We made it to the beach!

Suddenly the radio crackled to life, "This is the Federation Coast Guard broadcasting on International Maritime Emergency Frequency, we are looking for possible survivors of a plane crash in this area…" We could hear the faint sound of the helicopter over the calm sea…

 

I began howling over the radio: "WE ARE HERE!!! WE ARE HERE!!! HEY, WE ARE HERE!!! ON THE BEACH!! ON THE BEACH !!"

 

The sound grew louder and finally, the shining fuselage of the coast guard helicopter came into view. Both me and Jack, deprived of sleep and starving, stumbled upon on the beach, only to be gently lifted and carried to the helicopter by the rescuers.

 

As I stepped on to the helicopter, I looked back at the forest for one last time… The forbidden city of Dunwallis lay behind its protective cover. Ominous to the human eye and the radar, stood a weapon of mass destruction, still protecting the city from discovery by unwanted civilized visitors.