When You're Hot

When You're Hot1

The secretary led me through a door that went back past what I thought was the rear of the prison complex, which would have put me within the cliff that the base backed up on according to my estimation.  Sure enough, the squared off walls ended and the lights continued along what looked like a mine tunnel.  The M.P.s who had been escorting me had peeled off and left me with this tough looking woman who had introduced herself as General Watson's secretary. Wiring and ancient piping were attached along both sides of the tunnel.  This section ended at a cinder block wall in which was a door which indicated that the heating plant lay beyond.  It was guarded by four alert looking soldiers, all of whom were captains.  Before I could remark upon this oddity the secretary whispered to me, "I don't have the clearance to go beyond here Deary.  Be a good girl and go the rest of the way yourself."  She left me to approach the guards.2

General Watson himself opened the door in the cinder block wall and told the guards to let me through.  I asked him if I would need an I.D. badge for this part of the complex.3

"I don't see why.  There's no one here but you and I." he told me.4

"But, but." I stammered, "I've heard stories.  All the thermodynamic research that goes on in here; all the inventions.  Just you?"5

"Let me rephrase that." he grinned.  There's no one but me here who you could approach."6

"But how?"7

"Let me show you Miss. Cairns.  A picture is worth a thousand words."8

He led me farther and farther into the depths of the volcano which was behind and below the base, towering hundreds of feet above it.  The temperature grew hotter and hotter.  I removed my sweater.  Finally, when I could barely stand it, we stopped in a room which was empty except for a kind of portal set in a low pedestal in the center.  Sweat was trickling down my legs.9

"Look, but don't touch." advised the general.  "It is very hot."10

What was visible through the tempered glass was unbelievable, but there it was.  There were three glowing, naked men down there.  They shuffled about constantly in a pattern that took them around and around a central pit, directly below the portal.  Burning gas rushed up from somewhere and splashed out of the pit toward them, reflected from a piece of glowing fire brick set to perform this function.  I looked at the general helplessly.11

"They'll die.  The volcano will kill them." is all I could think to say.12

"They've been dead since nineteen sixty eight." he replied.13

"But, but.  I don't understand."  I was stammering a lot that day.14

"Either do we really." admitted the general.  "Either do they entirely. They were experimenting with ways that people could stand to work in hotter environments, fire fighters and such.  They had synthesized an enzyme and were about to try it on some test animals.  It was stored in a container that looked a lot like a water carafe.  Becoming thirsty they sent a lab assistant for water to drink.  She brought the enzyme by mistake.  It performed beyond their wildest expectations."15

"I still don't understand why they don't burn up in the heat down there.  It must be hundreds of degrees."16

"Almost a thousand degrees Celsius." he replied, handing me a bottle of pop from a fridge set into the wall.  "This'll cool you down."17

"Good God man.  It's impossible.  We must get them out.  Is that why you called me?  Do you want me to appeal for a rescue?  I'm not at liberty, you know."18

"No no.  You don't understand.  We don't want them out.  If they get any colder they'll freeze.  The reason they shuffle around like that is that they are cold there, away from the magma they usually live on and they go around and around the central fire like that because they can feel the lack of heat from the walls where they have just been."19

"So you don't want me to help find someone to get them out.  Then what use do you have for a reporter here?  Surely you don't just want me to report to my paper that all of the so called research coming from this facility is actually done by three dead scientists in a living Hell?" I asked, holding my hands toward the portal to feel the heat.  "I couldn't anyhow.  I'm being held with no contact with the outside world until the tribunal decides my fate.  The general handed me a nice hot drink.  I quaffed it down and held out the glass for a refill.  It was rather oily, but delicious.  The general was sweating and removed his jacket.  I pulled my sweater tighter and drank yet another glass.20

"No Miss. Cairns." he replied.  "You were slated for termination over the shuttle story leak and rather than lethal injection the establishment has chosen this."21

I lay down on the glass looking down at the three men below.  They stared up expectantly, still shuffling.  "I don't understand."22

"Those men have been working for our government down there for decades.  At first change their bodies went through a metamorphosis, requiring that they have paraffin instead of water in their systems.  The second change saw them go lead based.  It's all very remarkable."  He ran through a door and continued speaking through an electronic system.  The temperature finally came up to where it was comfortable.  "They are still men though.  They have demanded that if we want them to continue their research into new materials and processes for us they must have certain concessions.  We communicate with them using Morse Code tapped on the walls."23

A panel slid open in the wall.  A stone cup sat in the niche.  The contents were warm and soothing.  Another appeared, and another.24

"Men have certain needs." the general was saying as my clothing burned off. I realized what was happening.  "They wanted a woman.  You can help out with the experiments and certain, ahh, needs.  In exchange your sentence is commuted to life."  The portal slid aside and I lowered myself, shivering, into the arms of my new lovers.  Mother always told me I'd burn in Hell.25

It looks like Mother was wrong.  I'm quite comfortable here.26