The River Under the Desert

I had been walking through the desert wrapped in a white sheet for days. My filters had been set to their highest setting, squeezing every ounce of water out of whatever I ate. Snakes and insects. I still had little bits of scorpion between my teeth.

The sun beat down on the miserable land. Hardly a creature lived here. I had lost track of how long I had been out here. I had kept track of the first several days, but had eventually given up. I was surviving – for now. What did it matter how many twenty-four hour cycles went by before I was out of the desert?

I was glad for all the upgrades I’d had. I don’t even know if I’d have made it this far without them: the jelly discs in my joints, the ceramic teeth, the water filters in my stomach, the enzyme converter in my gut, and especially the temperature transformer that was nestled inside my neck.

I had been told that all the upgrades were a waste of money, that I wouldn’t need them where I was going. What luck that I had over prepared.

At first, I had been fascinated by the desert. I had known immediately that I was lost, but I had never seen such an expanse before. Now, I was quite sick of it. I wanted a nice tropical jungle or a soft forest. Somewhere where things grew.

Then, suddenly, amid the nothingness there was something. A blot on the smooth sand. A dark shape somewhere in front of me. I extended my hand toward it, and was slightly surprised that I did not grasp it. My eyes had only been accustomed to things in close proximity for I knew not how long.

The thing which I had tried to reach out and touch was somewhere off in the distance. I squinted. It took me a while to realize that the shape was something truly large and far away. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I went toward it anyway. It was something new, and that was enough.

It took an awfully long time to get close enough to make out details. What had seemed like smooth edges started to form into ridges. Then what had seemed like one solid mass soon separated out into many moving forms. I realized that what I was looking at was a large procession of men. A legion, in fact. They were wearing armor, sandals, and plumed helmets. Romans.

Even through my haze of thirst and exhaustion, I recognized them immediately. They looked just like the pictures in textbooks. They almost didn’t seem real. I stumbled toward them, swaddled in my sheet.

If I had thought that they would stop for me, I was mistaken. They didn’t even acknowledge me. They just continued on across the desert. Not knowing what else to do, I followed them. I tried several times to speak to someone in the procession, but my mouth was so dry that I couldn’t make a sound.

I didn’t know how many soldiers passed me by. I was too tired to keep up with them. I ended up trailing after them, hoping that by following them I might get out of the desert. When night fell, they eventually settled down and made camp.

It was then that I was finally acknowledged. One of the soldiers gave me a cup of water, which I drank at once. I tried to thank him, but he returned to his friends before I could say a word.

It occurred to me that even if I did try to speak to them, they wouldn’t understand me, and I wouldn’t understand them. A little while later, another soldier came up to me with a chunk of coarse bread. I ate it without any outward signs of gratitude, but this did not seem to bother the second soldier either, as he, too, had gone back to his friends before I could speak.

I slept apart from the multitude, and kept what I considered a respectful distance from them the next morning, as they continued on their way to wherever they were going. Eventually, I mustered enough courage to tap one of the soldiers on the shoulder and ask where they were going. He muttered something in Latin that I didn’t understand. I didn’t ask any more questions after that.

As it turned out, I didn’t have to wait long to find out where the legion was going, because they were soon there. They stopped once they reached what may have once been a temple standing amid endless desert. Only several columns were left standing. The rest had been reduced to a pile of stones sunken into the sand.

The legion surrounded these ruins. I made my way through the throng until I could get a good look at the ancient remains. I noticed what looked like the entrance to a cave among the stones. It was a most unusual place for a cave to be.

I could hear a voice giving orders. I looked and saw two men who seemed to be in charge. One was rotund and doing all the shouting. The other was wiry and slim, with an angular face and an aquiline nose. He could even have been called handsome, in his own way.

Given that the orders were in Latin, I didn’t understand a word. Languages had never been my area of expertise. I hadn’t been willing to pay for the language chip, either. It was one of the most expensive things on offer. It had come down to a choice between the language chip or the myriad upgrades to my bodily functions. I had opted for the latter.

I soon gave up on listening to the rotund man’s Latin, and instead ventured toward the cave. I leaned against the edge and looked in. I saw that it went down into the earth – quite a long way down, in fact. I could even make out the faint outline of steps. Most unusual.

I looked back and realized that everyone but me was keeping well away from the cave. In fact, everyone was staring at me as though I had done something very odd. The man with the aquiline nose then came toward me. He was saying something to me. He didn’t look pleased.

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand you,” I said. My voice was so faint, I could barely hear it myself.

The man continued to speak. I cleared my throat and interrupted his brisk, agitated speech.

“I don’t understand you,” I repeated.

He stopped then. For a moment, I was hopeful that he had understood me. But he hadn’t. He continued to say something, albeit much more slowly. I got the sense that he was saying something about the cave. He pointed at the soldiers, then at the cave, then at the soldiers again, all the while saying something very important that I did not understand a word of.

Eventually, the rotund man interrupted him. They began talking to each other. The slim man looked angrily at the rotund man, and then they started to argue. The rotund man brandished a short, sharp sword. The slim man looked grim, and grudgingly went to the cave.

“What’s going on?” I asked no one in particular. Thinking of nothing better to do and wanting to get out of the sun, I followed the slim man into the cave. He looked at me with wide eyes, and gestured for me to go back.

“I’ll be fine,” I assured him. “I’ve got a titanium skeleton. Don’t worry about me.”

There was no point in keeping any secrets. He wouldn’t understand me anyway.

The rotund man brandishing his sword urged the slim man on while looking rather suspiciously at me. He didn’t seem to want to deal with me just at the moment.

Having no more need for it, I left the white sheet at the cave’s entrance. It would only make the journey down difficult. Once I was out of the sun and in the cool air of the cave, I began feeling better almost immediately.

The rotund man had lit a torch behind us, so we could see where we were going. The slim man glanced nervously at me every once in a while. I smiled politely at him, not knowing what else to do under the circumstances.

We descended the steps for a long time. The further we got, the more difficult the steps got to climb. They became steeper, more uneven. At one point, I slipped. Before I could cry out, the slim man had grabbed my arm. He held me steady and muttered something angrily to me.

“I’m sorry, I’ll be more careful,” I said.

He continued to mutter as we went still further down. If not for the sputtering torch held behind us, it would have been pitch black.

There are some structures that never make the slightest bit of sense, no matter how many millennia one has to consider them. This cave was one such structure. In its own way, it was as grand as all the archaic mounds ever marveled at by knights and explorers. The work that would have gone into making these steps, the danger involved – it must have mattered a great deal to the people who had built it.

Then suddenly I could hear a rushing sound.

“Aqua!” The slim commander exclaimed. Even I understood that.

“Water,” I echoed.

So there was a river under the desert. That must have been why these steps had been built. So the steps were a sensible structure after all.

Then something still more surprising: light. I could see light at the bottom of the stairs. For a moment, I childishly considered the possibility that we had reached the molten part of the earth, but as we came further down, I saw that it was not the glow of magma, but a ray of sunshine.

“Strange,” I said to myself.

Eventually, the three of us finally came to the place the steps led to: a vast underground cavern filled with light. It did not take me long to realize that the light was coming from the ceiling, through numerous holes. Through these same holes, sand occasionally rained down.

This sand fell down into the river in the cavern and was swiftly carried away. The two Roman commanders rushed to the river and began to drink. I did the same. Once I had had enough, I splashed some of the water – surprisingly cold – on my skin.

I sat on the bank and looked around in wonder. I couldn’t fathom how such a place could exist. But I could not help but notice that the Roman commanders looked uneasy. I saw that the slim, handsome one did not take his hand off of the sword hilt on his hip.

I felt water trickling down my arm. I looked and was shocked to see that it was not coming from the rocks around me – it was streaming out of my own skin. Quickly afterward, I felt water running down my back. Through my terror, I understood that the water filters in my stomach had malfunctioned.

The two Roman commanders were staring at me in horror.

“I…oh, my,” I stammered as water dripped from me. Every drop was being ejected. If it didn’t stop, I’d be mummified before their very eyes.

How strange I must have looked to them. No one would believe them when they told the story, which was perhaps just as well.

In a tremulous flash of inspiration, I remembered a page of my manual that I had briskly looked over and turned.

“FEEL THE AREA WHERE THE RIB CAGE STOPS, JUST ABOVE THE ABDOMEN.”

I plunged my fingers to where I thought my stomach would be and frantically began feeling around.

“YOU SHOULD FEEL A HARD, SMOOTH BALL.”

I had eaten so little, it took me no time at all to locate it.

“MAINTAIN FIRM, STEADY PRESSURE ON THE FILTER UNTIL YOU FEEL A CLICK.”

I plunged my fingers hard against it, thinking nothing at all of the pain. My hand trembled as I used what little remained of my strength to keep pressing it. At long last a very audible click sounded out, and the water stopped dripping from me.

“THIS MEANS THAT YOU HAVE MANUALLY DEACTIVATED THE FILTER.”

I collapsed with a sigh of relief. My clothes were soaked and I felt terribly weak, but I was alive. I barely paid attention to the two Roman commanders. I could hear the rotund one shouting. The slim one crouched over me.

I stared up at his face. He didn’t look scared any more. He looked quite interested.

He asked me a question.

“I’ll be fine,” I assured him. “I just need some water.” I paused. “Aqua.”

He disappeared for a moment, and came back with a dripping flask. I sat up and carefully drank a few mouthfuls before giving it back to him.

I knew that now that my filter was useless, I couldn’t afford to wander around the desert like before. I’d need to have water almost constantly.

Despite this, I soon recovered enough to stand up.

The rotund commander stared at me like I was a thing, not a person. Could I blame him?

None of this had been part of the plan. Not the badly calculated coordinates that led me to a desert and not the broken water filter that had given me away.

He said something to the slim commander. I could tell it was about me. The slim man stepped in front of me, as if in defense. I suspected that they were arguing over whether to keep me alive.

Just as their argument began to get heated, the ground shook. My first thought was that the cavern was about to come crashing down around us, but when I heard a monstrous cry, I forgot all about the integrity of the structure and got to thinking about animals. The cry seemed to sound out from the depths of the river.

The two Romans got quiet at once. The slim man pulled out his sword and said something quietly but firmly to me. He indicated the steps with his sword, which I decided meant that he was telling me to go back.

But something was moving in the river. A large creature of some sort. I backed away to the steps, ready to run back up if things got too bad.

The two Romans stood, swords ready, waiting for the creature to show itself. It rose slowly, then extended itself to its full length. It was a giant scaly serpent.

The two Romans began to back away from it, both heading to the stairwell. I realized that they had come down here to find it. Perhaps to kill it. To recapture the underground river. These two men were here as scouts, nothing more.

Well, I thought, the history books never mentioned anything like this.

The giant serpent struck at us. The Romans jumped back. The slim one grabbed my arm and pulled me up the steps, with the rotund one following quickly behind. This time, we had no torch. Once we were out of the light, we had to carefully feel our way to the surface.

All the while, the slim man held my hand tight. Soon enough, we saw light again and bounded up the last few steps back into the desert.

The soldiers were still gathered there. They looked thirstily at us.

The rotund commander shouted orders, and the soldiers formed a procession again. But rather than go into the cave to kill the serpent, they went home. I followed them back to the city they had come from. I hadn’t been too far from the sea, as it turned out.

I couldn’t wait to go home and make my report about this. It had been a fascinating expedition.