Mariana

The chain of events, that will be known as the accident by the general managers and seniors of the World Web Co., happened on one cold January night, deep in Alaskan territory. The company headquarter was a three-storey, somewhat dilapidated wide old building. The white facade was falling apart on some places, so you can clearly see red bricks beneath it. Surrounded by the mountains from one and the pine tree forest from the other side, the building had natural protection.

Looking from the outside, you would never have guessed that the interior was full of modern day offices, sophisticated security measures and one of the greatest minds of IT technology. Self locking doors, night-vision cameras and alarm system that would wake up the army squadron and make them be here in a matter of minutes.

In one of those offices, thirty five year old Josh Anderson was working as a maintenance system engineer. He was working for the company for more then five years in his office in New York, but 5 months prior, his boss gave him on offer to work at headquarters itself. The contract was for 6 months with double salary and bonuses for working away from home in New York. After consulting with his girlfriend Anne, he decided that would be a great opportunity to earn and save some money for their exotic trip to Bali.

After stretching in his chair, he pulled away his view from the computer screen, took off his glasses and looked in the window, toward the mountains. It was snowing heavily and he could see the white mountain tops. He was thinking about Anne and how much he missed her. Less then a month for finishing his contract, to leave this remote place and be with her again. He thought about her, welcoming him by the door of their apartment - her worm hug, excitement for him finally getting home and a fire from her lips while kissing him...

The order of his thoughts were interrupted by his boss Stuart, opening the office doors.

"Hey Josh, sorry for interrupting..."

"No problem Stu." He checked the clock on his computer. " Is the shift already finished? Gosh, time really goes fast in here."

"Yes it is. Well, when I think about it, time really is a subjective thing..." Stu looked towards the windows shortly then continued:

"Look, I want to ask you something. Can you please stay a little longer on work? I just got the report showing error on the matter. There is a problem on the lower levels with three core processors on 2-B section. This happens really rarely. I don't want this to wait by tomorrow. Just replace them and you're free to go. The second round of vans are coming after to pick up the cleaners, so you can come up with them. Off course you will be adequately paid for overtime. What 'd you say? You think you can do it?"

"I say no problem."

"Are you sure? I can ask Brad, if you have some plans..."

"No no, I am absolutely sure. Don't worry about it. Some extra cash always comes in handy." Josh said and smiled.

"Yea, naturally Josh. Thank you, I owe you one" Stu said and just when he was about to leave the office, he turned:

"Oh, I almost forgot, here, my keycard. You don't usually go to lower floors, and you are going to need that for access." He stopped for a second. "Um, I don't need to remind you that you use it strictly for the task. Just leave it in your office before you go home."

"Relax chief I'll take care of everything... Don't miss the ride." Josh said showing on his hand watch and taking the keycard.

"Yes, right. Ok I am going... Bye Josh."

"Bye Stu. See you tomorrow." But Stu already turned and left the office.

He leaned back on the chair and started thinking about what Stu told him: "use it strictly for the task."

Josh was well aware about the secrecy of this place. He knew that this was one of the main ports for the global internet in the world and that it is responsible for the flow of trillions of gigabytes of information. Before coming to Alaska, he needed to sign the confidentiality form. The vans that were driving them from a little town called East Port; where they stayed; to work and back, didn't have side windows. There was also modified aluminum board between the driver and a passenger seats, so you can't see the windshield. The vans were driven by military personnel with camouflage uniforms. And Josh was sure that they checked very closely to his personal files. He didn't care for any of that. He was clean and followed the rules.

He got up from his desk and left the office. Outside, the winter intensified and half an hour later, it will become one of the worst blizzards in that part of Alaska that the locals remembered.

Josh dressed warm leather jacket and went to the large storage, to take the new processors. He found them easily and went towards the elevator.

Inside, he pressed the last button on the bottom - minus 3. On the pad near the elevator buttons, the message appeared: "Authorization Required". Josh leaned the boss's keycard against the pad and the message changed to "Approved".

Josh was finishing replacing the third processor on the supercomputer located on a B-2 position. The process took him more time than he thought it would because of their remote position and while in it - he lost the sense of time. He was in a vast space, the company called the machine room, with white ceramic floor and a metal beams on the ceiling from which the cameras and neon lamps were hanging. It smelled like plastic. The ventilation system was injecting the external air to cool the processors cores. More than sixty big square supercomputers were placed in rows and columns and the temperature in the room was zero degrees Celsius. While replacing the processors, Josh could see his breathe coming out from his nose and mouth and started feeling cold. He closed the metal cover of the housing and looked the clock on his cellphone. He was severely late for the ride home.

"Oh shit! Shit! Shit!" he yelled picking the tools and used processors in a hurry. He started running to the elevator when suddenly the power went out. The red emergency lights turned on and Josh stood for a moment, astonished. Wow, that never happened before, he thought. He kept running to the elevator doors. The visibility was significantly reduced, so Josh bumped to one supercomputer, almost falling, but manages to maintain balance. He place the keycard against the pad and called the elevator, but no response. He tried one more time. Then the second. Nothing. He turned around and leaned on the elevator doors looking at the dark reddish room and thinking what to do. The elevator was dead and it was getting colder.

Josh was standing between two supercomputers trying to worm himself up. The auxiliary generator power was supplying only the most vital parts. The supercomputers were emitting heat but that was far from enough, since the temperature in the room fell significantly. He was trying to figure out what happened and why the power went out, and got to only rational conclusion, that it must be the storm or maybe even the blizzard outside; that occurred while he was here; disrupting the electricity flow. He tried calling Stuart and his coworker Brad, but the signal was dead. He forgot that he was 30 meters below ground. The attempt to connect his phone with the supercomputer failed at the start, for not having an adequate equipment for that. Irony? thought Josh with sarcasm, standing here with the most sophisticated piece of internet technology, without the ability to use it. It looks like the lack of power, disrupted the vent system heaters, so the temperature in the machine room was falling to below zero now. Just like in a meat freezer, thought Josh, while blowing in his hands trying to warm them. Despite being in the thick jacket and leather gloves, he was trembling. On the opposite side of the elevator doors, from where he came, he could see another two sided steel door. The vans probably left. He didn't know when they are going to come back for him. It could pass hours or even days. Maybe they all got stuck in the blizzard. Josh looked towards the cameras on the ceiling. He didn't know if they are still working or not. He remembered Stuart's words: "use it strictly for the task." Then he looked at the keycard.

"Sorry boss, this is about survival!" Josh yelled, thinking that, if the cameras are still working, they could hear him, and those words would justify his means. "I don't wanna froze to death!" He got up and headed towards the two sided steel door, hoping for the luck.

The luck smiled at him. Placing the keycard on the pad near the door, worked. Josh heard weak unlocking click sound, and the steel door opened. "Just great." Josh taught. He couldn't open the elevator doors to get out but he could open the doors for which hasn't been authorized. It appeared that inside was another elevator with only two buttons. He got in, pressed the bottom button and elevator started diving more into the ground. He didn't know where he was going, hoping for, wherever it was, to be a warmer place.

The elevator was going down for almost four minutes before opening the doors. Josh stepped in the space behind. It was a huge hall with metal floor and walls. On the dark black ceiling, the neon lights were on. For whatever reason, the auxiliary generator was powering every consumer in the room. All around this huge hall were hundreds of enormous supercomputers in a steel casings, much bigger then in the machine room from which Josh came. With their blinking green and blue lights, it felt like a thousands of eyes were winkling at him. The machine eyes. They were emitting that buzzing sound that Josh could feel in his chest. It felt like he was in a giant bee hive.

"Holy shit..." mumbled Josh, while looking at those huge things. It was wormer in here but Josh was feeling at first uncomfortable, then the feeling arose to instinct fear. Something was not right. It was like he was in a dark room and something terrifying was breathing behind his back, waiting for him to turn around, and felt the urge to get the hell out of there. At the end of the hall (which looks miles away for Josh), he saw another metal door. He started walking towards them, moving between giant supercomputers, who towered over him. His walk was unconsciously turned from mild jogging to sprinting. While running, he looked towards the ceiling for cameras. He couldn't see one. Well, the damage had already been done, Josh thought. At last, he was out of the machine corridor, and before he reached the door, he needed to overleap the piles of wires that were going out of the supercomputers. They looked like a thousand black rubber tentacles and near the wall, they were all merging into one big cable. Josh stopped running, struggling to catch his breathe and looked towards the giant cable. The pathway of the cable was through the hole in the wall and into the room that was behind the metal door.

Josh was terrified. He was curled up, sitting on the floor and leaned against the wall in a simple uniformed room without windows. The room was sound-proof, so the buzzing disappeared. In the middle of the room, standing on a plexiglas table, was something looking like a laptop; the giant cable from supercomputers was connected to it; but on the lower board, the keyboard was missing. Instead, there was a name carved up in it - Mariana. On top of that board, standing as a trophy, was some kind of a VR headset. It reminded Josh to his PlayStation VR set, but this one was twice as bigger. What terrifies Josh, were a pile of documents standing on the table near the side wall. Widespread all around the surface, he saw the headline with bolded text - The Mariana's Project, on one of the paper. On another, with no particular order were texts about the universe, the religion, laws of physics, history of humanity, mass extinctions.... One was telling about the "meaning" of life, the final truth, and in it, names of all the ancient philosophers, followed by their learnings. What grabs his most attention were the personal files and names of apparently former workers of the company. Under the section - "Employment status:", stands - Retired. "What the fuck is this place?", said Josh, while looking at the age section under the personal information. The oldest employer was 39 years old.

While standing over the VR googles, he looked at the screen on the laptop. There was a black background, with white letters and numbers going over the screen with no rational order. It looked like some invisible lunatic were typing on invisible keyboard. Josh took the googles in his hands. They were heavy, shiny, made from some kind of metal. They were nothing alike anything he saw. After sitting in a room for some time, the fear Josh felt was fading. First, he decides to come back to the machine room, thinking that the power was on again. The rational part of his brain suggest that it would be his wisest move; but the more he looked at the googles, the more he wanted to try them. The force, called the curiosity was wrapping its paws around Josh. He already saw things that were not for his eyes. He decided just to take a peek.

Josh put the googles on his head. It covered more then half of his face. Nothing... Only blackness. "Should I press some bu..." His words were interrupted by the luminous white screen and Josh almost fell from the shock. Two very thin needles got out from the googles and pierced through Josh's temples. They were so thin, that he felt nothing. He was connected.

Luminous light faded. He was in space, orbiting around some red hot planet. Molten lava was whirling all around the surface, and he could see the sun in a distance. Then, he appeared on that planet, but now, there was no lava. He was standing on a rocky surface and looking at some strange centipede-like creature coming out of the boiled water. The scene changed, and he was now in a tropical rainforest looking at the huge animals with long necks and tails, running away from the predator. Dinosaurs, thought Josh. He was stunned. He could feel the air full of oxygen. Everything felt so real. Then, he was near the cave where ape-like creatures were looking at the sunset. First humans. After that, Sumerians; Egyptians and the pyramids, Greeks and Romans; going through the history of humankind; World Wars... The rise of the Nazi party. He heard Hitler's speech in Reichstag, then Churchill's, after the end of the war.... Martin Luther King, Vietnam war....9/11,... Josh was all there, and he never felt more alive. Then he was an impulse traveling with the speed of light, between devices. He saw countless faces, who were looking at their screens - on cellphones and PCs. The vision stopped in a familiar apartment and Josh saw a girl sitting on a sofa - Anne? He was looking at her through the camera of her laptop. "ANNE? HEY ANNE, CAN YOU HEAR ME??? I AM HEAR, ANNE!!! I AM HEAR...! Josh yelled, but he couldn't hear his own voice - like he was speaking with his mind. He was in space again, looking at the Earth and satellites that orbits her, but she wasn't blue. The atmosphere was red, and on dozen places around the globe - mushrooms of nuclear explosions. He was going up, Earth was now a dot - he saw the solar system. Then the other stars and black holes. He was so up, that he could see the entire Milky way. The other galaxies appeared, the whole clusters and Josh could see them orbiting around each other, performing the cosmic dance. With all their color patterns, Josh never saw anything more beautiful in his life. Every color in the Universe. But they were merging. Colliding, with enormous explosions, until eventually they became one single bright dot. Josh looked behind it.

"NO.. NO... NO, PLEASE GOD NO! PLEASE GOD, PLEASE! NOOOOOOOOOO...

They found him near Mariana. He was stiffed, kneeling in front of the table, like he was praying. Stuart removed the googles from Josh's head. His eyes were wide open and glassy. The look of primordial fear, thought Stu. His lips were half open with saliva collected on the corners, and dropping to his knees. His pants were wet and his hair was completely white.

"According to the camera, from the time he put the googles...", said middle aged man, with black suit, pointing out to Josh. "To this; he withstand the longest. One point two seconds."

Stu was looking at the blackness of Mariana's screen. Letters and numbers were emerging from the screen in a random pattern. "Do you think we will ever understand her?"

"Well, like every deity, she is hard to understand. The ways of the Lord are strange, you know the sentence." said the man in a black suit.

"Yes, I guess so", Stu said, looking away from the screen and placing the piece of paper on top of the other documents that were on the side table. From that distance you can clearly read the bolded text. Josh Taylor Anderson, age: 35. Employment status: Retired.