Nathan wandered through the streets, turning down this street or that when the fancy struck him.  As the hours dragged on the realization that he was utterly and completely lost began to settle on him.  He found that this didn’t bother him much.  He was too tired to care.  Too confused to really worry.  As he made his way down a long, sunlit boulevard, a well-landscaped and tree-lined divider separating the opposing flows of traffic, he remarked on the clean, modern feeling of the city.  Tall buildings, faced with vast expanses of glass and metal towered over the streets.  Statues and memorials were found here and there, though none gave any clue as to the name or location of the ghost town in which Dr. Nathan Waters now wandered, alone.

    After several hours of seemingly aimless wandering, Nathan realized that he had really been making his way more-or-less in one direction.  He didn’t know toward what he was heading, but he knew that his random turns were taking him somewhere.  It was as though a small force were acting on his thoughts, nudging his decisions in this direction or that.  This realization, in the silence of the city, in the desolation, devoid of cars, people, or any signs of life, began to unnerve Nathan.  Slowly the bright sun, which had once been so cheery and inviting took on a feeling of menace, as though it were watching him, tracking him.  Still, Nathan felt powerless to resist the force guiding his movements.

    Turning down another street, Nathan knew then where he was heading.  The area in which he’d found himself appeared to be an older section of the city.  The buildings were made of concrete and stone.  The facades bore Gothic styling, with a distinct European feel.  High archways led to huge, ornate doors guarded by statues of men in armor and snarling, vicious creatures conjured out of ancient legends.  The road, down the center of which he now walked, arrow straight, was narrower than the others, barely wide enough for one car to pass.  To his right stood an ancient church, built of dark gray stone, with exalted peaks, set back a bit from the street, the yard surrounded by a tall, black iron fence.  To one side of the church building, still contained within the fencing, stood several tall, weathered gravestones.  Carved into the stone of the edifice, in a high, Gothic script: “Mulier Sancta Nostra Noctis Perpetuae”.  Our Blessed Lady of Perpetual Night.   Nathan’s discomfort grew.

    Drawing his eyes from the church he looked now to his destination.  A few hundred feet ahead of him the road branched to heading to the left and the right, looping around to form, Nathan assumed, a circle.  Standing in the center of the circle was a magnificent building, round, with a domed roof supported by gleaming white columns.  The walls of the building itself were made from read brick.  The architecture of this building, Nathan noticed, did not match that of the surrounding buildings.  It reminded him of early colonial American, evoking ancient Greek and Roman structures.  It bore, he thought, a faint resemblance, at least in style, to the US Capitol.  The feeling of familiarity this brought failed to comfort him.  As he drew closer Nathan could make out an inscription in tall block lettering, just above the columns of the building’s front: “Bibliotheca Invicta”, The Unconquered Library.  Nathan approached the library, mounted the steps, and pushed on the great wooden door.

    Stepping through the door, Nathan found himself in an expansive foyer.  The floor beneath his feet was fine marble.  Encircling the walls around and above him were several dozen archways.  From here Nathan could see that the library had at least 7 floors.  Looking up to the great dome above him, he saw that an opening was left in the center of the dome, an oculus, through which some light could enter.  Still, several lamps burned around the room.  Following the light down from the oculus, Nathan’s gaze was drawn to an ornate, freestanding desk atop a round dais in the center of the rotunda.  Standing around the rotunda were the statues of 7 figures, each different, facing outward, as if guarding the desk.  After a few moments study, Nathan recognized the statues as personifications of the seven deadly sins: lust, wrath, avarice, sloth, gluttony, pride, and envy.  Nathan made his way to the dais, mounted the seven low steps, and approached the desk, noting as he passed the exquisite detail in which each statue was rendered.

    Standing at the desk, Nathan saw a few papers arranged carefully on the clean, dust-free surface.  Behind the desk stood a large wooden chair, bearing a burgundy cushion.  Indeed, the desk and chair seemed well-made and bore about them a sense of purpose and dignity.  Moving around to the back of the desk, Nathan sat in the chair and began to shuffle through the papers, looking for any clue as to where he might be.  A voice which was quiet, yet steady and carried well cut the silence.

    “No one but The Librarian may sit at the desk.”

    Startled, Nathan jumped up and turned rapidly to find the source of the voice.  He saw a man, well dressed in a simple black suit, moving towards him from the shadows.

    “Who are you?” Nathan called out.

    “Why, I am The Librarian, of course.  Welcome, Dr. Waters.”  The voice of The Librarian seemed friendly and inviting, yet edged with a hint of menace.  Nathan watched as the man approached.

-X

    Only present was the soft drone from an air duct in the vicinity.  Then: the soft feeling of cloth on Nathans body... a blanket.  Finally, Nathan attempted to sit up and pain lanced through his body.  Gasping, he lay back, reminded of the pain that came with running like he had after spending so much time on his ass.  Muscles aching, Nathan gritted his teeth and went about the process of making his way out of bed. 

    The tiled ground was cold against Nathan's bare feet, though the room was at a comfortable temperature.  When Nathan stood, there was a muffled buzz as several ceiling lights flickered to life.   A door at the far end of the room he was in swung smoothly open.

    "Mr. Waters..."  To Nathan's horror, Edward strode into the room, a sadistic grin stretched across his face.  Nathan stumbled backwards in a knee-jerk attempt at fleeing, reaching out to catch himself and regain his balance.  When he glanced up, he realized he didn't know this man at all.  Shit... hallucinations?  Get a hold of yourself, Nathan.  The visitor had a puzzled look on his face and had stopped part way to Nathan.

    "Mr. Waters?"  The man finally said, frowning.  Standing there in a token lab coat over slacks, white shirt and tie, was a man who appeared to be in his early forties, with thick gray hair and sharp blue eyes.  Nathan located the man's name tag. 

    "What can I do ya for, Dr. Eckersly?"  Nathan offered, smiling weakly.  The man's brows arced with muted amusement at Nathan's candor.

    "First, you can can call me David."  Dr. Eckersly replied, calmly.  "You can lay back down, as well."

    Nathan complied, gently easing his way back into the bed he'd been sleeping in earlier.  A deep blowing breath escaped from Nathan's chest after he'd finally settled back in and the pain started to subside.  Glancing over, he saw Dr. Eckersly pulling a chair up to his bedside before taking a seat and idly crossing his legs.

    "How are you feeling, Nathan?"  Eckersly inquired, innocently.  The simple question, however, evoked a stream of memory from the past day, filling Nathan with a pain of another kind.  I've been chased, abducted twice, attacked on a train and informed that my wife is dead.  How the FUCK do you think I feel?  Nathan felt the intense urge to punch doctor David Eckersly right in his smug nose.

    "I'm doing ok, I think."  Nathan replied.  The man seemed to retract from Nathan, concern spreading across his face as if he'd heard Nathan's less than friendly thoughts.  Eckersly's reaction only served to irritate Nathan.  "What, mind reading now?"  Nathan snapped, incredulously.

    "No..." Eckersly replied slowly, furrowing his brows condescendingly.  "We are monitoring you though.  We detected an intense emotional reaction, one closely linked to violent behavior.  I apologize if my question wasn't... sensitive to your situation in general.  I only meant to inquire about your physical well being."

    Nathan checked his head for wires or other telling devices.  Finding nothing, he turned to Eckersly, surprised.  "How..."  Nathan's voice trailed off as he began pondering how they might be monitoring him.  Nathan's curiosity inspired a bemused smile from Eckersly, but elicited no explanation. 

    "I'm going to cut right to the chase, Mr. Waters..."  Eckersly's expression shifted quickly from light and friendly to firm and serious.  "We need your help.  It is our hope that you'll be willing to aid us in our research."

    "And if I choose not to aid you?"

    "Then you can join Dr. Zaitzev.  Though I doubt from your current relationship with his group that you are feeling inclined to work with him."

    "I don't quite feel like working for anyone, to tell you the truth.  I could leave the country.."

    "It would seem that your talents for pattern perception do not readily extend beyond academic pursuits."  Replied Eckersly, dryly.  "Frankly, Nathan, we are your only other option.  Welcome to the deep end."

    Nathan bit his lip, trying to conjure up a way out of this.  He knew it was useless.  Eckersly was right, he had no other option.  "Who is 'we'."  He offered, finally.

    "Ah, I was wondering when you'd get around to that."  Nathan could see a smile in the man's eyes.  "Since we do not work with other institutions, we do not have need for a moniker.  Though, our origins stem from the same team Dr. Zaitzev was a part of.  Section 1618--we liked to refer to ourselves as 'the gold standard'.  Originally working out of the Perlman institute, we started off as a weapons testing group in the 50's.  Though the purpose of our research extended far beyond mere weapons."

    "What caused the split?"  Nathan asked, a contemplative look on his face.

    "Ah, yes.  Dr. Zaitzev, you see, was a shrewd businessman as well as an accomplished scientist.  Through a series of financial windfalls he became quite wealthy.  The money had no impact on the research... that is, until the Dyatlov incident."

    Nathan's brow furrowed, he'd heard that name before, but he couldn't place it.

    "Haven't heard of it, eh?  Well, in 1959 a group of nine ski hikers ventured into the Northern Ural mountains, lead by a man named Igor Dyatlov.  On the eastern shoulder of Kholat Syakhl--yes, the mountain near the Perlman institute--those nine people lost their lives."  Eckersly cleared his throat.  "I have a pretty good guess about what happened to them, considering what I've worked on since joining.  However, Zaitzev is the only one who could tell you for sure just what happened that day.  What made it into the papers was that the group tore their way out of their tent from the inside.  Five of them were found near the camp site in their underwear.  They'd ventured out into minus twenty Celsius weather, attempted to build a fire and had died of hypothermia.  The other four of them were found in a ravine, fully clothed.  One woman's tounge had been removed, while others had massive internal damage.  No signs of hand-to-hand struggle or of external wounds were present.  Their clothes were found to be radioactive, though there were no sources of radiation nearby.  There were reports of orange spheres seen in the same approximate area around that time."

    Nathan listened, stunned.  What were these people doing?

    "I know that section 1618 was responsible for the incident, and it was the first time that lives had been lost in the course of their testing up to that point.  The issue was that the deaths had provided invaluable data... many years worth of advancement in the research were reaped from the incident.  Naturally, the government was nonplussed about the fiasco.  Before the hammer was to be brought down on Zaitzev's team, however, he proposed breaking away from government reliance and relying on his own resources to advance the research.  You see, he views ethics as shackles;  a restrictive interface for being allowed to exist among and to use the money of the common people.  His aim is scientific purity, to create a haven for great minds to probe the nature of the universe.  It was his disdain for ethics that created a divide in the team.  We descend from the portion that resisted Zaitzev, though we did follow his model of financial independence."

    "So then you maintain your 'ethics' despite your independence?"  Nathan inquired.

    "Not... exactly.  Though that is where the initial divide emerged.  Our differences and reasons for competing with each other run far, far deeper than that.  You will find that we aren't quite dealing with a clear cut 'good' and 'bad' situation here.  Dr. Zaitzev is no villain, per se.  He is merely... more enthusiastic in his endeavors."

    Silence fell over the room for some time.  Nathan was well acquainted with Dr. Zaitzev's enthusiasm at this point.  The scene and the feeling of nearly losing Sarah those five years ago replayed in his mind.

    "I'll help you."  Nathan said simply.

    Eckersly nodded solemnly.  "I think you'll find you made the right..."  His voice trailed off, his expression shifting from confusion to abject horror.  "Oh... oh god.. no"  he mumbled tremulously as he shot up from his seat.  Motioning to Nathan to stay where he was, Eckersly strode swiftly out of the room.  The door hung open after him as he turned into the hallway.  Nathan, shocked, waited in his bed, as instructed.  Minutes passed, then hours; a sense of disquiet had eased itself over him.  Where is everyone?

-C