The trip had been long and grueling. The ancient Vienna Tunnel, like most other European Tunnels, had long since been abandoned. In order to conserve heat, most tunnels like it had been sealed with rubble.
James shivered. “We’ve gotta be getting close, right?”
Stephano, who lived in the Russian Quarters, nodded. “Fifteen hundred meters from the surface. He pointed upward. “We’re less than 2 kilometers below one of the most important cultural hubs in human history.”
“I’d love to see that.” Angela said in a dreamy voice.
Stephano pointed to the drill assembly their Spider was carrying. “We will.”
Angela sighed. “Not through a camera. I want to see it in real life.”
“It looks like the rest of the planet.” James said. “Cold, dark, and buried under four kilometers of frozen water, oxygen, and nitrogen.”
“I meant I’d’ve liked to see what it looked like before the Earth was knocked out of orbit, you know? The art, the people, the fashion, the culture, the architecture. I would have loved to have walked through the crowds, and smelled fresh-cooked foods, and dipped my hand in ancient marble fountains… You get it?”
By this point Stephano had removed the Drill and began assembling it.
“Well if we are successful, we should be able to recover a bit of that culture.” He said.
Angela flipped through the docket. There were photocopies of ancient paintings… Regal men wearing large hats with giant feathers, peasant women staring listlessly out windows…
But a strange painting was what caused her to stop and focus. It depicted an abstract pair of lovers, one embracing the other, both wrapped in a quilt of shining rectangular shapes.
“The Kiss.” She said out loud, reading its title.
“That’s the top prize.” Stephano said. “During the Panic, a lot of the lesser-known paintings were locked up and left behind. This one was extremely famous, however, and no one is sure why it was neglected. It was an example of classic Art Nouveau painted with gold leaf.”
“So?” James asked. “Gold is basically worthless these days.” He gave a sardonic laugh. “Guess that’s one of the benefits of living underground.”
“But it wasn’t worthless during the Panic.” Stephano said. “Neither was the painting. That’s why its fate is so curious.”
The trio worked in silence for a few hours, each lost in thought. When the rig had been fully assembled it was roughly the size of an automobile with a large, 4-meter long drill-bit sticking up from the top.
“Activating Drill.” Stephano said. He pressed a button and the top of the machine elevated several centimeters. Using a series of levers, he was able to raise and move the drill-bit until it was pressed against the low ceiling of the tunnel. It began to spin and ascend until the entire auger disappear into the rock above.
Angela turned to the television screen and watched the auger’s camera burrowing up through rock and permafrost.
After half an hour the drill broke through a surface and into a dark, hollow cavity.
“Is it the museum?!” Angela exclaimed.
Stephano frowned. “Don’t think so.” He activated a small bot that dislodged itself from the auger. It walked around, scanning nearby objects and relaying the signal back down to the team.
“Looks like an ancient house.” James said. He pointed at the screen. “Right there, under that pile of rubble, I think that’s a couch.”
“And there’s the table in front.” Stephano nodded.
“Lucky there was a drought here during the Panic.” James said.
“Why’s that?” Angela asked.
“Drought meant no precipitation, which meant no snow and ice.” Stephano said. “Snow and ice got very heavy very fast, and a lot of these ancient houses were crushed under the weight. Dryer areas froze slowly. Ice accumulated all over them equally, cocooning them before they could grow too heavy. Sometimes they created these hollow bubbles, and sometimes those bubbles survived.”
“So it’s not the museum?” She whined.
“It’s not all bad news.” Stephano said. “Look there.”
It was hard to tell what the screen was showing, but as the tiny bot approached, a small pile of scattered papers came into view. The camera focused on several of them, and blurry smudges solidified into legible writing.
“Alright, we’ve got a street number!” James exclaimed.
Stephano read the address out loud. James studied an ancient map, found the house’s location, and marked it with a small number. Angela then withdrew a can of spray paint from her pack and painted the same number beside the borehole.
“We’re still a few hundred meters from the museum.” Stephano said. He pointed to the wall on his right. “I think we’re gonna need to make another tunnel.”
“You mean we hafta come back?” Angela asked in a discouraged tone.
“Hey, it’ll be fine.” James said. “A treasure trove like this could take several years to recover.”
“We can come back in a couple months.” Stephano said as he began retracting the auger. “We now know where the next tunnel needs to be placed. We’ll be in the museum soon, and there’ll be enough treasure to keep us all comfortable and well-fed for the rest of our lives.”
Angela flipped through the docket, studying lost paintings believed to be in the area. There were so many beautiful images depicting life before the Earth was flung from the solar system.
“You think we’ll ever get back up there?” She asked. “I’d love to feel the Sun on my face.”
“We might get captured by a star someday…Millions of years from now.” Stephano said. “Won’t be the Sun though. And if we regain a stable orbit too close to the new star, we’ll burn to death.”
Angela ignored her teammate’s dour words, and instead turned back to the images. They were illustrations of the paintings, which were themselves illustrations of a more beautiful era. She knew she’d never live to see a time where humans were once again free to roam Earth’s surface, but she hoped that one day she could at least recover some of those first-hand illustrations and live vicariously through the masterpieces created by those ancient artists. It wasn’t the financial rewards, but that brief escape that would be the real treasure.