Free Abyss (Songs of Megiddo) by Daniel Klieve Page B

the more conventionally tower-like designs of skyscrapers as they rose towards the vast caverns’ ceiling. Some made it. Many made it. Like support columns – as they undoubtedly also were – these structures spanned hundreds of storeys...exceeding; exploding the definition of the word: ‘buildings’...and bridging the gap between the bottom and the top of the cave. Filling out at either extreme, they created an illusion of – somewhere in the middle – a perfectly still, perfectly reflective body of water mirroring the bottom as the top, or the top as the bottom. For the two bewildered Israelis, this would have probably been about the same level of ‘plausible’ as what they were actually seeing.
    Dio, squinting, could have sworn that he could make out gardens, filled with gently glo wing foliage of all types, colours, and heights...ethereally contouring the perimeters of a variety of structures. Off in the distance, there were other buildings. Or perhaps ‘buildings’ was a poor choice of words, in their cases. These were the structures that were less easy to reconcile with the known and familiar of the world above. Towering spires seemed to spawn thousands of lesser spires, crowded around their bases like trembling supplicants. An enormous, perfectly rounded sphere sat – seemingly suspended in mid-air – between the top and bottom of an up-growing tower and a giant, stalactite-like, down-creeping one. An astonishing variety of strange, presumably experimental, and hauntingly non-Euclidean architectures perforated the cities’ initial, Human, recognisability: tearing...shredding the previously unnoticed veil that sat between the normal and known, and a new, uncertain world beyond. A world of doubt and uncertainty.
    In Dio’s mind – and, he assumed, Yvonne’s as well – expectation had been washed clean. Maybe that was the point, here: a demonstration? A test? Because this grand lookout; this dizzying ingress...was clearly designed for show.
    “‘In this house at R’lyeh...dead Cthulhu waits dreaming’.” Yvonne quoted...the timbre of her voice infused with an eerie flatness that made Dio’s skin crawl.
    “What the fuck, Eve?” Dio’s disturbed response seemed to surprise her, because her awestruck expression melted into a vaguely patronising leer.
    “What? Did I make it weird?” She raised an eyebrow, folding her arms over her chest and nodding, pointedly, out toward the city.
    “Just...strange thing to say...” He murmured, quickly becoming – again – transfixed by the sprawling vista below.
    “Yeah. Okay. And this from the Jew who thinks gold stars are for ‘ effort’.” She said quietly to herself, shaking her head and smiling wanly.
    “I’ll have to tell Galt about that reaction – he’ll get a real kick out of it.” Wright’s voice echoed out from behind them. Dio and Yvonne turned: startled. Wright embraced Yvonne warmly, and took a firm hold of Dio’s hand, giving it a brisk, masculine shake. For a second, Dio felt his unease slipping away. Though he hated to admit it, Smoke had been right about one thing, if nothing else: there was something protective – paternal, even – about Wright’s body language. And it did have some level of hold on him. It was, however...something that hadn’t been there before. A side of Wright – and a response from Dio – that had only surfaced earlier that day. The effect seemed easily shaken off, though: as Dio realised he found this realisation made the dynamic more disconcerting, as opposed to less. He tried to shake it off. After all, he conjectured...a year in a bunker made virtually everything seem as if it were happening disturbingly, unnaturally rapidly.
    “Where are we? What is this place?” Yvonne breathed as Wright led them to a long, spiralling flight of polished stone stairs, leading down...down...down into the dark metropolis.
    “Oh, I do apologise .” Wright smiled back at them. “How rude of me. Dio? Yvonne?