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The Forbidden Zone stretched endlessly to the south, west, and north—an unforgiving expanse of blistering rock, dust-choked winds, and dead horizons. Hot, scratched, and sunburned, the small group of castaways—Steve, Dan, Valerie, Mark, and Fitzhugh—had begun their desperate journey by heading north, skirting the ragged edge of the Zone among the greenish foothills that clung to the eastern mountains.
From there, they had pushed northwest, deeper into desolation, crossing one sun-baked ridge after another under the merciless eye of the sun. Between the ridges, cracked sand mesas offered no shade, no rest, and certainly no water. Their canteens, once full, now swung empty and useless at their hips, each step slower than the last as thirst gnawed at their strength and the landscape refused to show even the faintest mercy.
They paused for a moment atop a jagged ridge, the sun hammering down on their backs as a dry wind stirred the dust at their feet. Dan squinted toward the hazy northwest horizon, where the rock formations shimmered in the heat like half-forgotten memories. “The Zone’s starting to all look the same to me,” he muttered, wiping sweat from his brow. “Are you sure we’re heading the right direction, Steve?”
Valerie shaded her eyes with one hand, her face drawn with fatigue but alert. Mark leaned on a boulder, scanning the barren terrain while Fitzhugh adjusted the strap on his nearly empty pack, grumbling under his breath. They were all waiting for an answer—even if they weren’t sure they’d like it.
The blond aviator lowered Fitzhugh’s modified screwdriver-turned-laser to the parched ground and wiped the sweat from his brow with a dusty sleeve. “Pretty sure,” Steve said, squinting into the shimmering distance. “See that mesa out there?” He pointed with his free hand to a wide rise in the distance, where two tall spires of rock jutted up like jagged fingers from the mesa’s western edge. “And those dome-shaped sandy rises to the south—see them? I remember those from when we first came out of the access corridor from the Underfolk’s world.”
Valerie and Mark followed his gaze while Dan stepped closer, hands on his hips, eyes narrowed at the rocky horizon. Fitzhugh, fanning himself with a scrap of cloth, looked anything but reassured.
Steve grinned faintly at Dan. “Don’t worry, we’ll find it. Even without street signs.”
Dan glanced at the tool in Steve’s hand. “Amazing what Fitzhugh cooked up from scraps,” he said dryly. “A pocket-sized laser cannon.”
Fitzhugh raised an eyebrow. “Well forgive me for being a miracle worker,” he said with his usual sharp sarcasm.
Steve chuckled through cracked lips as the group began climbing the next ridge. “Ten years ago, something like this would’ve been the size of a steamer trunk and twice as temperamental. We’ve come a long way.”
“Hooray,” Dan muttered, his voice flat as he trudged upward after them.
Climbing to the top of a ridge, they paused to survey the land ahead. Almost at once they saw the dust cloud of a motorized column approaching.
Steve took the laser from Dan, who had been carrying it slung across his back with a makeshift strap fashioned from a salvaged utility belt and carefully set it behind a cluster of sun-blasted rocks. He motioned silently to the others, and one by one they crouched behind the jagged stone outcrop, disappearing into the narrow sliver of shade cast by a massive boulder.
No one moved. Not Valerie, who pressed her back against the cool rock and clutched her canteen tight. Not Fitzhugh, who huddled low, muttering anxiously under his breath. Not Mark, whose jaw was clenched as he stared through a gap at the oncoming column of dust. Not Dan, who peered just over the ridge with narrowed eyes. And not Betty, who crouched beside a scrub of dry grass, one hand gripping a stone as if it might somehow protect them, the other resting lightly on Valerie’s arm in a silent gesture of reassurance.
The convoy approached .... jeeps and heavy troop haulers, armored wagons rumbling with chained wheels over the baked earth. Gorilla soldiers manned the vehicles, rifles ready, officers sitting stiffly at the front, directing with curt gestures.
Mark hissed through his teeth. “Third patrol today. The Ape Army’s crawling all over this place like they expect an invasion. What are they looking for—us?”
Still, no one responded. The sound of engines and boots echoed across the desert basin, then slowly faded as the convoy passed out of view.
Only once the last vehicle vanished beyond the far ridge did Steve give a silent nod. Dan exhaled, reached down, and retrieved the laser carefully, slinging it back over his shoulder.
They stood, dusting themselves off, and began to descend the slope together—Steve at the front, Valerie close behind, Fitzhugh grumbling to himself as he picked his way down the uneven rock. The trail of the patrol was plain below them: deep tire tracks gouged into the dry earth, the sand torn and scattered, as if the desert itself had been wounded.
"Let's go up that way and cross over on those rocks," Steve suggested, pointing toward a jagged stretch of stone that sloped toward a narrow ridge. "No use leaving tracks they can follow on the way back."
"You betchum, Indian scout," Dan muttered with a smirk.
Steve scooped up a small pebble and lobbed it at him, bouncing it off Dan’s shoulder. "Gotcha, wiseguy."
Fitzhugh grumbled as he adjusted the strap of his pack. “If we’re finished with the frontier comedy routine, may we please continue before the sun melts me into a puddle?”
Valerie, shielding her eyes, gave a wry smile but kept her pace steady. “Let’s just move before another patrol rolls by.”
They all crossed the rocky flats, the brittle earth crunching underfoot. The jagged outcroppings offered better footing and would disguise their passage from any prying eyes above or behind. Climbing carefully, the group reached the top of a rise to the west.
Steve was first to the crest. He raised a hand to his brow, squinting against the glare of the high sun, scanning the dusty expanse ahead. Sand and stone stretched for miles—barren, blistered, but hiding the path they needed to take. The others gathered behind him, silent in the heat, waiting for his signal to move on.
"See those rocks?" Steve said, pausing at the top of a weather-worn incline. "I think the place we climbed out is just ahead."
No one replied, but Dan adjusted the strap of the laser slung across his shoulder and started walking forward. Valerie, Mark and Betty followed closely behind, scanning the terrain with wary eyes. Fitzhugh brought up the rear, muttering under his breath about heatstroke and ambushes.
As they approached the cluster of jagged stones, the group instinctively slowed. Their steps grew cautious, each of them alert—not just for any tricks or traps that might be left by Mendez’s illusions, but also for the possibility of an Ape Army patrol lying in wait.
“There it is!” Steve exclaimed, pointing toward a shallow depression nestled between broken slabs of earth. “That rough patch right there. You can barely make it out, even if you know what you’re looking for. I guess you’d have to be right on top of it to tell it’s a hole.”
He stepped forward and began descending the rocky slope with determined strides. “Come on, let’s find Barry.”
Reaching a ledge, Steve stopped and looked back, puzzled. The others had hesitated.
“What’s the matter?” he asked, eyes settling on Dan, who stood stiffly, his brow furrowed. “This is the place—right?”
“Listen, Steve,” Dan said, his voice low but tense. “If this is one of Mendez’s tricks… we could lose the laser. And then we’ll never be able to build our own fortifications at the Marintha’s wreck site—when we finally locate it. And we will.”
“You’re right on both counts,” Steve replied, nodding grimly. “But there is something we can do now.”
He turned sharply and climbed back up the incline to where Dan was standing. Without a word, he unshouldered the laser from Dan’s back, gripping it carefully. The others—Valerie, Mark, Betty, and Fitzhugh—watched silently as Steve scanned the surrounding terrain, assessing the rocky slopes and sparse desert growth.
“There,” he said at last, pointing toward a shallow cleft in the rocks just above a natural overhang. “That spot’ll give us some cover and a good vantage. Let’s move!”
The former captain of the Spindrift crouched beside a jagged outcrop and carefully set the laser into a narrow crevice between two sun-bleached rocks. Dan stood close, watching as Steve adjusted its position, making sure it wouldn’t shift or be seen easily.
Valerie handed him a flat stone she’d picked up nearby, and he laid it over the crevice, masking the hidden device. Steve followed up by adding a few more scattered rocks and sand, camouflaging the cache to blend seamlessly with the surrounding terrain. Mark gave an approving nod, while Fitzhugh groaned loudly and wiped his brow.
“Oh splendid,” Fitzhugh muttered with dramatic dismay. “There goes my beautiful invention, stuffed in a hole like a squirrel’s last nut!”
“Don’t pry any rocks from the ground,” Steve warned as he crouched beside the others, brushing sand over the freshly concealed cache. “Just use the loose ones. We don’t want this to look artificial—and soil would be a dead giveaway.”
He stepped back, eyes scanning the small pile with a pilot’s practiced precision, then gave a small nod of satisfaction. “There. That ought to keep it hidden until we figure out exactly what Mendez has in mind.”
Mark folded his arms and muttered, “I’ll tell you what I’ve got in mind—planting my fist right between Mendez’s eyes if he’s really behind all this.”
Betty, crouching nearby as she dusted off her hands, looked up sharply. “And what’s that going to accomplish, Mark? You can’t punch your way out of a psychic trap. Especially when your opponent can literally think you to death.”
Steve walked a short distance down the hill, then turned to study the slope behind them, taking in every rock, ridge, and shadow. “Look at it several times as we go down,” he told the others, gesturing for Dan to follow his gaze. “If you don’t, you might not be able to find it again on the way back. It’s an old cowboy-and-Indian trick.”
“Where do you learn these things?” Dan asked, eyeing the terrain dubiously.
“I read Westerns,” Steve replied brightly, then glanced around sheepishly. “Well... I used to.”
“Hmph,” Fitzhugh muttered, trudging past him. “Next thing you’ll tell us is Hopalong Cassidy taught you survival skills.”
Mark gave a dry chuckle. “I used to be a science fiction junkie myself—until I landed in a world where apes run the government and I’m the one hiding in the rocks.”
Valerie rolled her eyes but said nothing as she followed, helping Betty navigate a narrow path between two crumbling ledges. Betty glanced back once more, trying to memorize the pattern of boulders like Steve had done, and muttered, “Just don’t expect me to read the signs like a Navajo tracker.”
The castaways—Valerie, Mark, Dan, Betty, Steve, and Fitzhugh—hurried down the slope in a crouch, their boots skidding over loose gravel. Reaching the edge of the open sand, they broke into a quick sprint across the shimmering basin toward the shallow depression ahead. One by one, they threw themselves flat against the hot ground, hearts pounding, breaths held. For a tense minute or two, they lay still, scanning the horizon for movement or signs of pursuit. Seeing nothing, Steve gave a slight nod, and they rose cautiously, making their way toward the cluster of jagged rocks along the far side of the depression, moving low and silent like shadows.
Steve peered down into the cone-shaped hole, the others gathering close behind him—Valerie shielding her eyes from the glare, Mark standing silently with arms folded, Dan scanning the perimeter, Betty frowning thoughtfully, and Fitzhugh keeping his distance with visible unease. Yes, this was it. The same place where the ceiling of the ancient tunnel system had collapsed, opening a narrow way out past the shattered ruins and broken streets of long-dead Metropolis. The jagged edge of the breached concrete roof still jutted like a wound in the earth, nearly camouflaged by the surrounding stone, its surface stained with age, erosion, and soot. Steve pointed it out as he remembered how it had happened—how the white-robed men had pursued them up from the Below World, and how, in their desperation, their eye-beams had struck the ceiling, unintentionally blasting it down atop themselves. The collapse had sealed off the tunnel behind them and given the group just enough time to escape into the open air.
“Looks quiet,” Dan said, his voice low and cautious. “It also looks as if they never bothered to dig out the corpses.”
The broken terrain before them was just as the castaways had left it weeks before—cracked, jagged, and dry. Only the ever-present desert dust had settled into the crevices, softening the raw scars left by the cave-in. But near the base of the slope, they could all see it now: a dark, curving slit in the earth. The tunnel's entrance, partially hidden but unmistakable.
“That’s it,” Steve confirmed, stepping forward a few paces. “If it hasn’t caved in further, we might even find our motor cart where we abandoned it.”
“I wonder why Mendez doesn’t have one of his fancy defensive illusions guarding this place,” Dan said, glancing warily around.
“Maybe he doesn’t think we’d come back here,” Valerie suggested, adjusting the strap on her shoulder bag and scanning the ridge.
“Or maybe it’s a trap,” Fitzhugh muttered darkly, keeping one hand on the makeshift holster where his screwdriver-laser was tucked.
Mark squinted toward the slit in the ground. “He might’ve redirected his systems. If he's watching us, he’d know we’re out here—maybe he pulled his illusions back to protect something else.”
“Or he wants us to walk right in,” Betty said, her tone skeptical. “No firewalls, no monsters, nothing scary. Just a wide open door and a whole lot of false security.”
Steve didn’t respond right away. His eyes remained fixed on the shadows curling around the tunnel’s mouth, where ancient concrete met sand and silence.
“They must not patrol the tunnel,” Dan observed quietly, scanning the deserted entrance. “But then, I guess the whole thing is pretty well hidden, isn’t it?” He turned and looked back over the vast, sun-bleached desert that stretched beyond them. “And this used to be Metropolis, U.S.A. I wonder what started all this—what brought it down.”
Mark shook his head. “I tried to get something out of one of the Underfolk I talked to, but they wouldn’t say much. Seemed like a secret even to them.”
Steve stepped forward, his gaze fixed on the cracked earth and the shadows below. “Probably started in the usual way—greed, power struggles, and a failure to listen to warnings.” He sighed, the weight of the past heavy in his voice. “But what’s happening down there, right now—that’s what really interests me.”
Steve started down the slope, his boots kicking up loose dirt and gravel that tumbled noisily into the depression below. Silently, Dan followed close behind, carefully picking his way through the rubble. Valerie, Mark, Betty, and Fitzhugh hung back for a moment, watching for any signs of danger before descending themselves. Once at the bottom, they clambered over the debris of the fallen roof and stepped into the dim tunnel beyond.
“Listen,” Steve whispered cautiously as their eyes slowly adjusted to the semi-darkness. The only sounds were the occasional plop of dislodged stones settling deeper into the rubble.
“Nothing,” Dan muttered, pointing to the right where the tunnel curved slightly. “The motor cart is still where we left it.”
Steve nodded and then pointed toward a pale shape half-buried beneath broken concrete and rubble. “So is that…”
The group drew closer and saw the edge of a white robe peeking out—a corpse.
Dan shook his head grimly. “Nothing we can do for him,” he said quietly as he turned and made his way toward the cart, the others following close behind.
One by one, the castaways climbed into the small motor cart, settling onto its worn seats with a mixture of relief and tension. Steve slid behind the wheel, fingers brushing over the cracked controls as he turned the key. With a sputter and a low hum, the engine roared to life, vibrating beneath them like a living creature awakening after a long slumber.
The cart lurched forward, its wheels crunching softly over scattered rubble and dust as they eased into the tunnel’s shadowed maw. The walls, etched and pocked by centuries of decay, seemed to close in around them as the faint glow from the headlights cast jagged shadows on crumbled stone and twisted metal. The ancient air was thick with stillness and secrets, the vehicle’s steady motion echoing faintly against the worn surfaces of the 5,400-year-old passage—an eerie reminder of the lost world they were navigating through.30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtpXaDhPeBK
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The lava ate away at the rock, every second adding more fuel to its fires. The arrow of the needle on the indicator was well into the red "Danger" zone, and Mendez looked at it with bitter eyes.30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtiIEPjvvhL
"Soon the pressure will be so great that lava will be eating into the rock walls of the reactor room."30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpo0VRZjLXh
Barry's voice was flat, but his words were loyal. "They will come. I know they will."30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVobhRZsIEd
Mendez took his eyes from the television picture that the special armored cameras were bringing to them. He studied Barry's face."30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLKtjahpPR4
"Only if their concern for you is stronger than their suspicion of me, Barook."30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡayiyNLV7Tj
Barry was silent, his eyes troubled. But his young spirit was strong.30Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzHCZvEXbK2
