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From the depths of the chasm in the desert floor, a bizarre machine began to rise. It was a mass of interwoven metal lattice and pulsing, crystalline nodes, neither clearly solar nor nuclear in design. Instead, its surface shimmered with a subtle iridescence, as if it were drawing energy from the very ambient fields around it—harnessing the faint, ever-present electromagnetic hum of the planet and the cosmic rays that filtered through the thin atmosphere. The machine emitted a low, resonant hum, a sound that vibrated in harmony with the shifting sands, suggesting that it was alive with an unknown power source.
As it ascended, tendrils of energy seemed to stream along its framework, coalescing at the crystalline nodes, which glowed with an eerie blue light. No conventional fuel or panel indicated its method of operation; instead, it appeared to siphon the ambient energy of the environment—capturing the chaotic dance of charged particles, gravitational ripples, and subspace anomalies that permeated the air. The device pulsed rhythmically, as if breathing, and its mysterious energy absorption hinted at technologies far beyond human understanding, promising both a revelation and a threat in this desolate new world.
Steve stared at the towering machine, his voice low with dawning realization. “The illusion of the idol and the flames… they weren’t here to protect us.” He swallowed, his gaze fixed on the pulsating construct. “They were meant to shield that from the apes.”
Dan exhaled sharply, glancing between the silent, kneeling ape soldiers and the enigmatic device rising before them. “Yeah,” he muttered. “They’re here to protect—whatever that is.”
Steve and Dan stood in silent awe as the strange machine continued its slow ascent from the desert floor. It was a haphazard construct—a jumble of interwoven metal lattice, mismatched crystalline nodes, and scavenged circuitry that glowed with an eerie, blue light. It looked nothing like the sleek, purpose-built engines of a modern spacecraft. Instead, it appeared to be a homebrew marvel, fashioned from odds and ends that someone, somewhere, had cobbled together in desperation.
Steve furrowed his brow, racking his brain as he studied the contraption. "Look at this," he murmured, his voice barely above a whisper. "It’s like someone grabbed spare parts from every scrap of old tech and glued them together with a wild idea of capturing ambient energy. I don’t think it’s a super-machine—it’s more like... a makeshift solution."
Dan nodded slowly, his eyes never leaving the machine. "Yeah," he replied, "it's definitely a patchwork of forgotten components. But there’s something about the way it hums and draws power from the desert’s electromagnetic field—like it’s trying to do more than just exist." He paused, then added, "Maybe it’s the desperate handiwork of someone who knew exactly what they were fighting against."
Steve's eyes narrowed as he muttered, "Even if this collector is only 20% efficient, imagine the power it's pulling from the air. The possibilities are staggering—unlimited energy, control over the very elements. It's no wonder the owners went to such lengths to hide it from the Apes."
Dan rubbed his cheek thoughtfully, then looked up at Steve. "You know, I read in the airline newsletter that they partnered with an energy firm to develop a collector just like this—to power future generations of suborbital transports. Maybe this device is our clue, the very spot where the survivors of the Marintha found refuge."
Steve fixed his steely gaze on Dan and barked, “Get moving, Dan! Head down there and see what’s going on—just pray we don’t run into any more apes out there!”
"You're right," Dan said. "C'mon."
The two pilots started climbing down the crevice they'd just so laboriously gone up. But the going was easier and they could leap from one rock to another in some places.
"I wonder who---or what---is using all the power....? Steve asked.
They came to the bottom of the rocky slope and ran quickly across to the huge rectangular opening. The electromagnetic energy collector towered above them, casing a vast shadow on the rumpled desert floor. When they stood on the edge of the opening, they could hear the humming and clicks of some of the machinery—its internal circuits adjusting and its modular panels pivoting in precise, rhythmic intervals as it tirelessly scanned and absorbed the ambient electromagnetic energy from the desert air.
The hole they stood near was as long as a football field, and just as wide, but the collector was far greater in width than that, having risen out from the thick main shaft.
Dan shook his head slowly, his tone laced with a mix of irony and apprehension. “You know, Steve, I can’t help but wonder if they designed this collector’s hiding place with that loudmouthed gorilla in a leather helmet in mind—General Urko. It’s almost as if they intended to keep him out of the loop at all costs.”
Steve got down on his knees to peer into the darkness of the pit from which the support column protruded. "I can't see anything down there," he said. "It's so bright out here and so damn dark below."
Dan pointed. "Look at these trapdoors, or whatever you call them. They're as thick as we're tall."
"Watch out!" Steve called, holding out a warning hand.
Dan had stepped closer, and sand from the edges was spilling into the depths in a wispy waterfall. He quickly stepped back.
"It's a long way down..." he muttered. "I wondered how we can get down there?"
The two pilots lay on their stomachs and edged close to the lip of the vast artificial hole, trying to see into the darkness. As their eyes got used to the lack of light, they saw a stairway coming up along the wall to the west; it halted at a platform some distance below the edge of the pit.
"Look there!" Dan said. "Probably some sort of service stairs to work on the doors. See where the lower set slid back into the wall there?"
"The top set, the ones directly under the sand, drew back, dumping the sand onto the lower set. Then they pulled back, taking the sand with them. But how does the sand get back onto the top?"
"It must, or they'd have a square depression here in no time," Steve suggested.
The ground now began again to thrum with vibrations, and the two pilots slid back hurriedly from the edge of the great hole. More sand showered into the depths as they scrambled to their feet."
"Look!" Steve shouted, pointing up. "It's folding up again."
"That didn't take long." Steve's eyes were squinting up at the immense contraption.
"Maybe they don't have all that much of a power drain," Steve suggested, "or else that thing is hellishly more efficient than we thought!"
A far-off rumble of sound suddenly came to them and the two men looked at the giant Lawgiver statue beyond the hole.
"It's coming down!" Dan exclaimed.
Steve pointed at the stairs below. "Let's get over here and go down!"
"Right!" Dan said as they began to run around to that side. "Anything's better than staying out here and waiting for those gorillas!"
Over their head the huge collector was collapsing itself neatly, the black-lined leaves swinging to fold along the big metal trunk that had thrust them out into the hot desert air. Steve and Dan knew it was going to descend in moments, the mighty doors would slide shut, and they would be left on the surface of the desert valley, wholly vulnerable to the onslaught of the Ape Army.
The two men raced around the edge of the great pit until they were just over the stairs. But the platform was still almost twenty-feet below, and there were no handholds.
"We'll have to jump!" Steve yelled over the tumult.
Dan looked back and saw that the mountains were lower, with gusts of sand, and dust obscuring them. A quick look at the collapsing tower overhead showed that the time was almost upon them.
"Okay, you go first and catch me!" he said with a grin.
"Shut up, wiseguy, and---jump!"
With his final word, Steve hurtled off the edge of the pit rim, falling through space in a spray of sand. He hit the metal grid of the platform hard, jarring his body roughly, and fell heavily. He had wanted to hit and roll, in order to absorb some of the fore of his fall, but the distance was deceptive and the platform small.
"Get out of the way!" Dan called down.
Steve pulled himself over to the stairway and descended a few steps. He saw Dan hurtle into the air and followed his body until he, too, crashed heavily into the platform.
"Oof!"
Steve ran over to help his companion to his feet. Overhead they saw that the collector had folded itself into a long box and they heard the squeal as powerful motors, hidden in the depths below, started lowering the monstrous column.
"Let's get down lower," Dan said. "Before the doors close up there and cut the light off."
"How do your feet feel?" Steve asked.
"Like someone beat on 'em with a club," the black pilot grumbled. "That platform is hard!"
The column rumbled to a halt. Steve and Dan heard a faraway click; then, with a grinding whine, the lower set of doors rumbled close over their heads. The vast chamber turned dark, and they felt their way down the stairs as the upper doors closed. Trotting down the dark steps as fast as they could, they heard the hiss of compressed air.
"That's how they get the desert to look all right!" Steve explained, stopping for a moment. "They vacuum the sand from the tops of the inner doors. Automatically, I suppose. Then they shoot it out like a great dust cloud and just let it settle down naturally. Very clever. They must have thought this out," he said admiringly.
"Yeah?" said Dan. "But who are they?"
"Well, we're just going to have to find out. Let's hope that Nova and the humanoids stay safe until we can get back to them.
They groped their way down the seemingly endless stairway as it zigzagged along the sheer wall into the unknown depths.
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Steve grasped Dan in the dark. "Is that a light, or are my eyes playing tricks?"
Below them shone a faint red light, almost hidden by the steps and pipe railing. And they could now hear some kind of slithering sound, maybe perhaps by a piece of machinery. Earlier, all sounds had been masked by the ponderous whine, clicks, and rumbling of the massive dish column and the double set of overhead doors.
"No, there is something down there," Dan answered. "Let's get a move on!"
"Not so fast, bud," Steve cautioned. "These stairs could end in open space, and we'd never know it in this darkness."
They made their way down past several more switchbacks of the zigzagging stairway until they stood on another platform that seemed to be the end of the steps---or the start. A red light overhead dimly illuminated the edges of a square hole in the platform floor. Coming up from the hole and onto a roller overhead, then down the other side, was an endless conveyer belt. Traveler drums kept the two sides of the belt apart and teeth slipping into slots in the belt helped support it. Small handholds and foot platforms alternated down the length of the belt, which vanished into the darkness below.
"It looks like one of those things in a parking garage," Steve said, "but it's efficient." He glanced at Dan in the dim red light. "You up for it?"
Their voices echoed in the deep concrete pit and Steve saw Dan shrug. "It's a long way down,' he said looking into the hole.
"Well, let's get it over with..." Steve stepped onto the moving belt and grabbed a handhold.
Dan waited until Steve had vanished into the hole before he stepped on and sank into the square opening.
Di red lights were set at intervals, and the astronauts could see that the smooth concrete of the pit above had now given way to rough-hewn rock.
"You all right?" Dan called to Steve.
"Yeah....but I think we're not too far from the bottom. I can see a floor down there."
In a few moments Dan, too, could see the floor. The two men braced themselves to jump off the descending belt.
Steve stepped off easily and called out to Dan, "It's easy. Just step off."
Dan jumped to the floor and the endless belt disappeared into the hole, reappearing on its upward track on the reverse side.
The two aviators looked around, trying to orient themselves. In the red light they could see the base of the enormous metal column that rose into the darkness of the huge cavern above them. From the column's base radiated a number of pipes, each as thick as a man's torso, which vanished into the massive machinery. There were also shadowed control panels and hulking shapes of metal and opaque plastic, whose purpose neither Steve nor Dan understood.
"Quite an energy system, isn't it?" Dan said, his voice reverberating in the stone chasm.
The vertical, rough-cut rock, tunnel through which they had just descended ended in this rock-bottomed room on the floor of the huge concrete cavern.
Steve looked up at the shadowed structure critically. "I don't think the apes could've engineered anything like this. Their level of technology seems rather static---rather primitive---when compared to this!"
Dan nodded, his face puzzled. "But if the apes didn't build this monster, then who the hell did?"
They stood staring, wordless, for a time. Both the lack of real light, and the few clues stopped them. Finally, they turned to look more closely around them, at the rough-cut room-like area they were in.
Steve’s eyes narrowed as he scanned the shadowed room. There, just beyond the threshold, he spotted it—a wide, arched tunnel entrance, its smooth, curved walls lined with an eerie, metallic sheen. The design was strikingly unnatural against the raw, rocky surroundings, its symmetry almost too precise to be of ape construction. The tunnel sloped gently downward, disappearing into the dim glow of unseen lights further inside. Its shape, the way the walls curved inward just slightly at the top, was unmistakable. "Some kind of.....tunnel," Steve guessed.
Dan stepped into the darkness, feeling his way by touching the curving walls. "I can feel a slight breeze," he said.
Steve and Dan stepped cautiously into the tunnel, their footsteps echoing slightly against the smooth, curved walls. The air inside was cooler, with a faint metallic tang, as if it had been circulating through unseen vents for centuries. The walls themselves were a seamless fusion of rock and some unknown alloy, with dim strips of recessed lighting embedded along the upper edges, casting an eerie, amber glow.
The tunnel sloped downward, gently at first, then more steeply as they moved further in. Overhead, the ceiling was unnervingly high, curving to meet the walls in a way that felt both organic and artificial. Occasional alcoves jutted out along the passage, their contents obscured in shadow, as if the tunnel served some greater purpose beyond mere passage.
"Air conditioning?" Steve wondered out loud.
The further they went, the deeper the sense of isolation became. It was as if the tunnel had swallowed them whole, separating them from the surface world—and whatever strange force had conjured the flames and the statue to keep the apes at bay.
"Oops! A bend here," Steve cautioned.
"Is the breeze freshening?" Dan asked.
"Hardly a breeze, but the air's moving, all right," Steve said.
The two men searched carefully with their feet, hoping they wouldn't stumble into vertical open shaft in the dark. After what seemed like an interminable time, Steve felt the edges of the tunnel-side end.
Dan now leading the way, the two men felt along walls of roughly cut stone until they once more found the smooth metal edges of the huge tunnel.
"Did we come full around?" Steve wondered. "It doesn't feel like we came that far."
"The air's still moving toward us," Dan said. "Let's take a chance."
Steve laughed a short, wry laugh. "Isn't that what we've done every minute since we arrived in this godforsaken land?"
Dan nodded. "Yeah, I guess so," he said.
The two men stepped into the round tunnel and continued their travels. After some time, Steve peered deeper into the tunnel, his breath slow and measured. There was something beyond, just barely visible. A faint suggestion of depth, of space. “There’s something down there,” he murmured. “Not just the end of the tunnel—something bigger. A chamber, maybe. Something vast.” He glanced at Dan, his voice edged with quiet urgency. “And we’re going to find out what.”
Dan narrowed his eyes, straining to see through the dim tunnel. After a moment, he nodded. “Yeah… I see it too,” he said. “That’s no dead end—it opens up into something. Something big.” He glanced at Steve. “Question is, do we really want to find out what’s waiting for us in there?”
Dan and Steve quickened their pace, eager to escape the unsettling confines of the tunnel. Their footsteps echoed off the cold, curving walls as they pushed forward, nearly breaking into a run. The closer they got, the more their anticipation built—until, suddenly, they emerged into a flood of blinding light.
Both men staggered, shielding their eyes with their hands. The brightness was overwhelming, almost painful after the dim, claustrophobic tunnel. Spots of white and color danced in their vision, and for a moment, they could see nothing at all. It was as though they had stepped from night into the heart of a star.
Squinting into the glare, their impressions were too chaotic to voice immediately.
Steve was unwilling, a first, to comment on what he thought he saw. But Dan exhaled sharply, his voice barely above a whisper. “…Jesus.”
As Dan and Steve stepped out of the tunnel, they were greeted by a sight that wrenched the breath from their lungs. The ruins of a once-great city sprawled before them, a skeletal graveyard of shattered skyscrapers and crumbling towers, their steel frames twisted and blackened by time. Broken concrete lay in massive slabs, some still bearing the faded remnants of painted street lines, now choked by dust and creeping vines. Glass, long since shattered, had formed glistening shards that crunched underfoot like brittle ice.
The silence was deafening. The wind howled through the wreckage, carrying with it the ghostly echoes of a world long lost. Here and there, the remnants of civilization stood defiant—half a bridge jutting from a broken foundation, the remains of a streetlight standing crooked and rusted, a subway entrance yawning like the mouth of a tomb.
Steve swallowed hard, feeling the sting in his eyes, but he forced himself to blink the tears away. He wasn’t going to break down. Not now. Not yet.
Beside him, Dan clenched his jaw, his hands curled into fists. There was a lump in his throat the size of a boulder, but he refused to let it take hold. They had survived too much to fall apart now.
But as they stood there, gazing out at the ruin of everything they had once known, one thought burned in both their minds—this wasn’t just a relic of the past. This was a warning of what was to come.
“Hey Steve, do you still want to go home?” Dan asked, a hint of concern in his voice.
"Was it London?" Steve mused, thinking about the iconic skyline now reduced to rubble. "Or Los Angeles?" The ghosts of skyscrapers and palm trees flickered in his mind
They climbed down from the tunnel entrance, holding onto chunks of concrete with broken, rusted fingers of reinforcing steel thrusting from them, to get down to the mutilated avenue. The buildings seemed bigger from this lower angle.
Dan stepped carefully across a fractured boulevard—a shattered stretch of cracked asphalt, littered with twisted rebar and remnants of a once-bustling highway. His boots kicked up clouds of dust as he made his way to a collapsed overpass that now served as a makeshift ramp. Climbing its precarious slope, he reached a vantage point where the ruins revealed startling clues: faded billboards with slogans promising a "Brighter Tomorrow" and scattered, singed newspapers reporting a major nuclear scare from the late '80s. It was a grim tapestry of forgotten history—a legacy of disaster that had unfolded after they left 1983, hinting that humanity's brightest hopes had been shattered long ago.
"Look, Steve—over there!" Dan exclaimed, his voice a mix of awe and disbelief. "Is that a ruined column? Maybe even a monument—a relic of the world that vanished after 1983. Could it be a clue to what happened?"
He started into the shadows and Steve jumped the boulevard fracture and climbed the fallen overpass behind him.
Steve and Dan approached the monument, its weathered stone rising from the ruined landscape like a shattered relic of a bygone era. The surface was pockmarked by time, and what had once been a proud inscription was now nothing more than faint, eroded traces—scratched out so completely that only ghostly remnants of words remained. It stood silent and somber, a testament to a lost time and the mysterious fate of the world after 1983, leaving them to wonder whether its defacement was deliberate or simply the ravages of nature reclaiming its secrets.
"Hold on, Dan—I see something scrawled on the stone, a hand-drawn message. Let me try to decipher it."
Dan and Steve struggled for a clear view of the scrawled words, their eyes straining as they leaned precariously against the cool stone. The message lay high on the monument’s surface, obscured by years of wear and a layer of dusty erosion. Determined, they scrambled up a narrow ledge that jutted out like a step, each man balancing carefully as they edged closer to the inscription. Their combined efforts allowed them to peer over the crumbling edge; Steve even pressed his face against the rough surface while Dan held his arm to steady him. Slowly, through the haze of time and the roughened texture of the stone, they began to decipher the hand-drawn marks, piecing together the forgotten words that hinted at a past both tragic and mysterious.
Dan's voice was barely a whisper as he stared at the strange, cryptic message scrawled on the stone. His eyes traced the uneven, jagged marks. "It... it says... 'The time has passed, yet still they linger. Shattered and lost, waiting for the hour to rise.' What the hell does that even mean?" He paused, shaking his head in confusion. "There’s more, but it’s all a jumbled mess—'Beyond the veil, they wait in silence. The future's echo calls, but no one listens.'" Dan swallowed, clearly disturbed. "I don’t get it. It’s like some riddle from a forgotten age."
Steve and Dan stared up at the scrawled words, their brows furrowed in deep puzzlement. The message wasn’t just cryptic—it was eerie, unsettling in a way neither of them could quite put into words. The longer they looked, the more they noticed details they had somehow overlooked before. The ruins surrounding them weren’t just remnants of a single era. Some of the crumbling structures bore the unmistakable hallmarks of the 20th century—brick facades, shattered glass storefronts, twisted steel beams that once supported skyscrapers. But interspersed among them were ruins of an entirely different kind—massive structures of an alien geometry, curving archways that seemed to defy balance, towering obelisks made of a dark, glassy material that reflected the dim light in unnatural ways. Strange symbols adorned some of the wreckage, faded and broken, as though whoever had built these structures had long since vanished. There was an eerie silence, a stillness that made the decayed city feel less like an abandoned place and more like a graveyard of forgotten civilizations. Steve exhaled slowly, glancing at Dan, who was still staring at the message, the cryptic words burning in his mind like a riddle with no answer.
Steve turned to the dark-skinned co-pilot, his expression grave. “Dan, we need to think about this carefully,” he said in a low voice. “This message, these ruins… they’re one thing. But what happens when the others start putting the pieces together? What happens when Barry realizes there’s no home to go back to—because home doesn’t exist anymore?”
The two men stared around in confusion and apprehension, their minds befuddled by the enormity of their discovery.
Dan swallowed hard, glancing around as if the ruins themselves might close in on him. “Steve… look, I know what this looks like, but… but think about it. The stars… the moon… even the sun isn’t right. What if—what if this isn’t our Earth? What if that space warp threw us into… I don’t know… an alternate universe? I mean, they call them space warps for a reason, don’t they?”
Steve did not even reply. He knew his companion was merely searching wildly for a "logical" explanation. Dan fell silent and they both sat down, staring from the broken paving up to the fractures in the cavern ceiling far over their head that admitted some light.
Steve exhaled sharply, shaking his head. “No, Dan. This is Earth—the same Earth we left behind. The continents, the ruins, even the air we’re breathing… it all matches. That space warp didn’t throw us into some parallel universe. It hurled us forward—through time. And God help us, we’ve got no idea how far.”
“Is it possible… I mean, could the Spindrift have caused this? Something in the engines, the guidance system—something we don’t understand?”
Steve shrugged. "We may never know. But, come on, let's look some more. Maybe we'll find something that'll...." His voice trailed off, since he had no other suggestions.
The two of them walked down the broken steps and took the turning of the street, climbing over tumbled masonry and shattered walls. They saw a stone statue of a lion, beheaded and battered almost beyond recognition, then the discolored and cruelly crushed remnants of a bronze equestrian statue. Dan pointed out the rusted hollow column of a fire hydrant and a fairly well-preserved brownstone front. Steve gestured toward the crumbling facade of another half-familiar building.
"Only stone and reinforced concrete seems to have survived. Hardly any wood. But's been a long time...."
"What's the real story?" Dan wondered aloud.
Steve didn't answer. They came into an open space between great crumbling mounds of buildings. Passage was blocked to the left, which Steve's instinct said was south, by the sheer mountainous mass of loose brick and glass and broken shards of concrete. Ahead of them was a broken-edged rectangular hole in the ground. A metal pole, almost completely rusted through, and bent at a crazy angle, hung precariously over the square-cut pit. There was a sign on it, weathered almost into indecipherability.
Steve squinted at the worn metal sign and read it aloud, "Shuttle Subway, 32nd Street."34Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡIeU5rOBAZX
Dan glanced at the sign, his face puzzled. "How do you know? I can't read it---it's only smudges.
"Don, you couldn’t read it because you didn’t know where we were," Steve said, his voice tight with realization. "But now I do. This is Metropolis. And if I’m right, just down from 32nd Street should be Centennial Park."
"It must be a jungle," Dan breathed.
Steve now gazed far up at the roof overhead, which he couldn't even clearly see. "Not enough light coming through to grow anything. We haven't seen a spot of green."
Dan, too, threw back his head to stare. "Some kind of artificial roof," he said. "Something they must have domed the city with after we left. Maybe geodesic."
"They were talking about it in our time," Steve remembered. "What a fantastic engineering feet! They must've air conditioned the whole city!"
"But the desert outside---!" Steve's voice choked off in realization of the immensity of the changes that had taken place. "Good Lord, what happened?"
The white aviator sat down on a mostly melted fallen statue with the words Perry White still readable at its base. He put his head in his hands and only after a long moment did he speak.
"Something...somehow.....in our future must have gone wrong---terribly wrong. Somehow, thousands of years after the space warp took us, the apes took over the planet."
His dark-skinned co-pilot sat down next to him. They were silent for a long time.
Then Dan asked, "Did the apes cause all this, somehow? Or did we----our descendants---do something that destroyed all we'd built?" He struck the metal seat and jumped up. His voice echoed in the ruins of one of the world's greatest cities.
“Damn you! Damn every last one of you! You had the whole world in your hands, and you let it rot! Let it burn! How could you do this? How?!”34Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKIqdPHEvjS
