The Antediluvian Shard

A single scream came from the corridor leading down the right-hand passage. I couldn’t tell if it was Takeda or Endo, but it really didn’t matter.

It was followed immediately by the sound of splintering timbers and the roar of falling rocks.

I tore off down the passage, keenly aware that there was some kind of pit in the darkness ahead. “Stay behind me!” I shouted over my shoulder at Hayami and Erika.

The concrete floor quickly changed to dirt, studded with sharp fist-sized stones that were easy to slip or turn an ankle on.

A pile of broken supports and boulders appeared in my flashlight’s beam. The ceiling had caved in, blocking my path.

I aimed my light at the deadfall, looking frantically for an opening.

And hoping that I wouldn’t find a crushed body.

Stones and gravel were still pouring down from the ceiling. If there had been a drop-off here, it was now filled with rubble.

Looking up, I spotted a small gap near the top of the pile. I scrambled up and looked through the hole to the other side.

In the distance, I saw someone running with a flashlight. Just before he turned a corner and disappeared I saw Takeda’s face reflected in the beam.

“Takeda!” I shouted through the rapidly shrinking gap. “Are you okay? Where’s Endo?”

A chunk of rock fell past, narrowly missing my head, so I jumped back to the floor. “I saw Takeda,” I said to Erika and Hayami. “He’s okay!”

“Thank God!” Erika breathed a sigh of relief. “But, no sign of Endo?”

“Takeda was running after Endo before the cave-in.” I waved my hand at the debris blocking the tunnel. “You know he wouldn’t have left Endo behind. I think he was still chasing him.”

Hayami climbed up to take my place. “Takeda!” she screamed. There was real distress showing on her face, the first time I’d ever seen her show any concern for someone other than herself.

I tried to keep the worry out of my voice. “We need to be careful. Apparently, some of the tunnel supports outside of the bunker construction aren’t safe.”

Hayami climbed down from the rubble, then yanked on my shoulder, spinning me around. “Why didn’t you try to stop them, Keisuke?” she snarled.

Her face was a twisted mask of fury. Startled,I took an involuntary step back. “I tried! They ran past me before I could stop them!”

“You had the map! You could have warned them!”

I was completely dumbfounded. She wasn’t just angry, she seemed on the edge of hysteria.

“Hayami, where is this coming from? Didn’t you hear me tell them to stop?”

“Hayami, please.” Erika laid a gentle hand on her friend’s arm. “I’m sure Keisuke did try to stop them.”

She turned to me. “Hayami and I were discussing something, and we were too far away from you to hear anything but shouting.”

What was so important they couldn’t discuss it with the group? I wondered.

I decided to change the subject. “It doesn’t matter now. Look, here’s the situation.” I knelt on the rough floor of the tunnel and rolled the map out, holding the corners down with rocks.

“The tunnel system we’re in is U-shaped. Takeda and Endo took the east arm of the tunnel.” I traced the right side of the ‘U’ with my finger.

“Obviously, we can’t follow them because of this.” I pointed at the cave-in. Erika nodded while Hayami glared at me.

“The east side of the tunnel links up to the entrance that was blocked by the construction crew. But they won’t be able to get out that way. Instead, they’ll need to go here.”

I pointed out an oval-shaped area between the arms of the ‘U.’ “This room here. I call it the ‘Eye’ because of its shape. Seen from above, there’s something in the middle that looks like a pupil.

“There’s a branch off the east tunnel that will take Takeda and Endo to the Eye. As it so happens, the tunnel we’re in connects to the Eye on its other side.”

This time I moved my finger along the left side of the ‘U.’

“So, we go the way I originally wanted to go. We’ll meet up with them in the Eye’”

Hayami watched me without saying a word while I rolled the map up. But she hadn’t sheathed her sword, either, which was starting to worry me.

Erika gave me an encouraging smile but she looked closely at me, as if trying to make up her mind about something.

We started back down the corridor. I was still worried that I’d only seen Takeda, not Endo, and wanted to find out as soon as possible what had happened.

The trip through the old bunker corridors was spookier than any haunted house I’d gone through at festivals. We walked past old wooden crates covered in moldy canvas, walls lined with dried cargo netting, and faded papers on bulletin boards.

Finally, we arrived at the branching corridor that took us to the Eye. I turned right and walked down the branch leading to the entrance.

The entrance to the Eye was a heavy duty steel double-door, like those found on the floor of a factory. I pulled on the handle, then rattled it a few times. Locked. I could probably bypass the lock with no problem, but…

But there was something off, something different about the corridor.

I walked back to where the tunnel made its sharp right-hand turn. The corridor we were in should have continued north.

I saw only a blank wall instead.

“What’s up, Keisuke?” Hayami said. “You’re not leading us into a trap, are you?” Her usual condescending tone had an edge to it, as if she was hanging on to the fragments of her sanity.

Erika also seemed to have picked up on Hayami’s state of mind and was giving her friend a look of genuine concern.

I held my hands up, completely baffled. “There should be a corridor here.”

The map had been created using underground remote sensing equipment. It wouldn’t lie. Which meant there shouldn’t be a wall in front of me, but a tunnel, and that meant…

“There’s a hidden door here!” Eagerly, I scanned the wall, looking for a release of some kind. “Maybe we can go through it to reach the Eye!”

I found it on the floor: a small button, concealed to look like a small rock. I mashed it and heard a click.

Acting on instinct, I pushed against a barely visible seam running from the concrete floor to the point where the domed ceiling started. A section of the wall opened smoothly on a concealed pivot.

We all gasped.

Our flashlights revealed rows of sturdy shelves along one wall of the tunnel, each one supporting dozens of gold bars. A very modern, gasoline-powered forklift was parked to one side.

On the floor were steel pallets, stacked with bulky wooden cases covered by thick plastic tarps. The twin lions of the purple Bank of Japan logo showed on each of the dark green covers. One of the tarps had been thrown aside, revealing an opened case containing more gold bullion.

“Everyone!” I shouted. “We’ve discovered the missing BOJ gold shipment!”

But there was something else in the room, resting on a display stand atop the open case of bullion as if it was meant to be seen. It appeared to be an elongated quartz crystal. The jewel seemed to emanate an odd, reddish glow.

“The Antediluvian Shard,” I heard Erika whisper. Her face took on a strange aspect, an expression of desire bordering on lust. Her eyes seemed to lose their luster as they clouded over.

“A -- a what?”

She just shook her head, never taking her eyes away from the crystal.

Behind me, I heard Hayami speak. “You found that hidden room very quickly. Didn’t you, Keisuke?” There was no missing the sinister intent behind her voice.

I spun around to see Hayami’s sword inches from my face.

“Whoa! Take it easy with that!” I backed slowly away from her. Hayami followed. The katana quivered occasionally, as if it had a heartbeat of its own, but never strayed far from my throat.

“You knew the gold would be in here. Didn’t you?” The tip of her blade flicked downward, slicing across my shirt. A moment later, blood oozed out from the cut.

I jumped back as she aimed another cut at me, then pulled my ninjato from its sheath. Hayami continued to advance.

“Hayami, stop!” Erika shouted. She brought her staff up in a ready position as I blocked with my ninjato, then jumped back from another slash.

This time I landed on something that cracked and splintered.

The floor gave way underneath me.

Too late, I realized that I was falling into a cleverly disguised pit. Whoever had stored the gold in this hidden room had also set up at least one trap.

I plunged up to my hips in quicksand. Dropping the ninjato, I reached out blindly for anything that would keep me from going under the surface. My hand closed on the hemp rope of a rotting cargo net that hung down the side.

The net tore under my weight, leaving me dangling by a single cord. I held my breath as it started to fray.

With great care I reached up with my free hand, straining as hard as I could.

The rope parted with a snap.

I latched onto the edge of the pit by my fingertips. A moment later, I was able to grab hold with my other hand.

But the pull of the quicksand was too much. I couldn’t move any further.

I knew most people could actually float in quicksand. But then, most people weren’t carrying all the equipment that I had on my back and strapped onto my body.

The flashlight of one of my companions blazed overhead.

“Pull me up!” I shouted. “I’ve fallen into quicksand! Get me out of here before I drown!”

I was shocked as Hayami’s face came back into the beam of my head lamp. The flashlight revealed a demonic smile full of glee as she looked down at me.

She sheathed her sword and placed a hand on her hip. Then she laughed. “Oh, isn’t this special! It’s no less than what you deserve for killing Takeda and Endo.”

“But they’re still alive! I saw Takeda with my own eyes!”

“So you say. Neither Erika nor I saw them alive, we only have your word to go on. You three were in the lead, where the corridor branched, and both of them went in the wrong direction.”

“I told them they were going the wrong way! They didn’t listen to me!”

“But no one heard what you said to them and they’re dead now. Buried under that pile of rubble. How very convenient for you.”

“Let me talk to him.” A shadow loomed out of the darkness as Erika moved up next to Hayami.

Wait, what’s going on? I thought. Why isn’t Erika trying to help me up? I felt a cold dread in my heart.

Above me Erika’s light pink rain boots stopped at the edge of the pit. The cartoon character of a bee with an umbrella was printed just above the ankles.

“Erika! Help me out!”

The cheerful rain boots contrasted sharply with the tone of their wearer.

“Keisuke. I need to tell you what Hayami and I were discussing a few minutes ago.”

“Help me up! Then I’ll talk all you want!”

She ignored me. “Before we entered the tunnels, Hayami received a text from her mother. She only stopped to read it a few minutes ago.”

I heard her draw in a deep breath. “Keisuke, her father couldn’t bear the shame of being tried as a criminal and a traitor to his country. He committed suicide less than an hour ago.”

For a second I stopped breathing.

Like a vengeful spirit, Hayami reappeared next to Erika. She spoke through gritted teeth, her words thick with rage and pain.

“You and your uncle knew the gold was hidden down here, Keisuke. You framed my father because he was too close to discovering your scheme.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Hayami, have you gone insane? What makes you think Uncle was involved in this?”

Erika answered for her. “When we were in the dojo making our plans, you told me that the gold came from the Hishikari mines.” She moved closer, inadvertently kicking gravel onto my face.

“What of it? A lot of gold comes from the Hishikari mines these days.” I could feel a sense of betrayal burning in the pit of my stomach, like sour vinegar. “Erika, please don’t tell me you believe Hayami?”

I was starting to get desperate. The quicksand held me tight, and my fingers were slipping.

“A transfer involving this much gold comes from several locations, in addition to cash and securities.” She exhaled, a long and unhappy sigh. “But you correctly mentioned that it was all gold bullion from Hishikari. That wasn’t public knowledge. How did you know that?”

Her voice had changed, taking on a cold, inquisitorial tone.

“I…I must have heard it from Uncle.”

“Your uncle was never hired as a consultant by the Bank of Japan. My father sits on their board of directors. So did Hayami’s. Hayami’s father lost all his gold investments in the robbery, so he volunteered to follow up on the crime, working with the bank’s own security team.”

Hayami interrupted. “My father must have come very close to discovering that your Uncle was the driver, Keisuke. The missing sixth robber.” Her voice rose to a shout. “He might have succeeded, but he was arrested for theft of state secrets, based on the false evidence you planted to keep him from discovering your uncle’s part in the robbery!” 

For a few seconds it was quiet in the tunnel, broken only by my ragged breathing.

“You lied to me, Keisuke,” Erika said.

The words cut me deeper than any sword stroke Hayami could inflict.

“And after you led Takeda and Endo to their deaths, you were planning to do the same to Hayami and me.”

“No! No, I’m not lying! Erika, what’s come over you? Please, believe me!”

With a sneer, Hayami kicked my hand off the ledge. “Isn’t it fitting that you die in a pit, just like Takeda and Endo! And no one will ever find your body.”

I shouted as the quicksand pulled me lower. I was now hanging on with just one hand.

Erika looked down at me, a mixture of sadness and anger in her expression. “Keisuke, how could you murder them? They were our friends! And you helped kill Hayami’s father as well.”

“I didn’t kill them! I swear I didn’t kill them!” The quicksand was now up to my neck. Panic was starting to set in.

Something dripped on my face. They were tears, falling from Erika’s eyes. I suddenly realized that I’d never seen her cry, and even though it wasn’t truly my fault I felt a deep sense of guilt.

“And you did all that, for money?” Erika said. “For this?” She straightened and held her hand out, indicating the room filled with gold.

And the red crystal.

Once again, Erika’s eyes dulled and lost their focus as she looked at it.

I suddenly realized what was happening. “Erika, listen to me! That crystal, or whatever it is. I saw you change as soon as you looked at it. Your voice, your face, your eyes, they all changed! You even started to believe lies about me. You’ve fallen under some kind of control!”

As crazy as it sounded, it was the only thing that made sense to me then.

The stern look on her face softened.

She turned to Hayami. “I -- I want to believe Keisuke. He may be right.”

Hayami spoke with contempt. “Oh, he’s just lying to save his skin. Of course you’re not being controlled.” She pointed in the direction of the crystal. “That’s just a jewel. Nothing more, nothing less.”

But I could see a redness in Hayami’s eyes that hadn’t been there earlier.

Almost like a glow.