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What if everything you knew about your past was wrong? What if who you thought you were was all a lie?

Chase Dagger comes face-to-face with his past in the form of an intruder who first wants to hire him, then tries to kill him. What prompted this response? The answer lies in a series of numbers which triggers Dagger’s memory and leads him to a remote city one mile below the surface, technologically advanced yet abandoned …or is it?

Prologue

The halogen beam sprayed light over stone walls. The shaft was the size of a freight elevator with a metal stairway. He cast a nervous glance at the steel hatch one flight up. A fragile stake of wood propped open the hatch leaching a scant two inches of sunlight into the dark. Leaning over the railing, he aimed the halogen beam down the shaft revealing an endless number of stairs. How far did it extend and what awaited him at the bottom?

With little more than stubborn determination, he continued down the stairs letting the beam of light search for signs on the walls to lend some clue as to what danger he might encounter. He stopped two stairs before the third landing and listened. Silence. Complete silence. Not one hum of a motor or patter of four-legged creatures. Not one hint of a whisper or soft sound of fabric rustling. Just utter silence.

As he stepped onto the third landing a loud bang echoed through the stairwell. The flashlight skipped down the stairs as he dropped the gym bag, pulled his gun from its holster, and flattened his back against the wall. Three flights above the hatch door had slammed shut, breaking the wooden stake. Immediately light sconces on the walls clicked on in succession. His heart pounded in his chest as though trying in vain to escape. He pointed the gun first toward the closed hatch, then down the lit stairwell. He listened for sounds of footsteps running, doors slamming, voices shouting. But still there was only silence, except for the endless clicking of light sconces becoming softer, more distant, until he couldn’t hear them anymore.

Looking up he contemplated sanity. Of all the reckless things he had done in his life, this had to be right at the top. He should retreat and trust that the hatch didn’t lock when it slammed shut. He should return home and forget about this ludicrous mission. But then the depths beckoned and his curiosity intensified. Insanity had gotten him this far. Why back out now?

He looked down at his feet. What had triggered the lights? His weight on the landing? Maybe a timer after the escape hatch was opened. He holstered the gun, retrieved the flashlight, shoved it in the gym bag, and continued down the stairs. The walls looked like marble or cinderblock that some giant stone polishing machine had buffed to a smooth finish. There weren’t any cameras he could detect but for some bizarre reason he felt as though he were being watched.

Dizzy from the endless flights, he collapsed on the stairs and pulled a bottle of water from the gym bag. Climbing down was one thing. Climbing up was a task he wasn’t anticipating.  Although he should have worked up a sweat, he didn’t feel hot. The temperature in the stairwell was relatively mild, not the cold dampness he had expected. The air didn’t smell moldy like the inside of a tomb or earthy like a grave. It actually had the fresh scent of the outdoors. It was as though the stairwell were humidity and temperature-controlled, yet there wasn’t a sign of a vent anywhere.

His eyes were drawn to a number in black lettering on the wall. It was the second time he had seen the identical number 402. How many flights since the first time he had seen the number? He had tried counting the lights as he descended but lost track at sixty, or was it seventy? The monotony of the stairwell was getting to him. He could be trapped down here with nothing more than a gym bag of power bars, fruit, and water. How long could that last?

He capped the bottle and dropped it into the gym bag. Picking up speed, he pounded down the stairs, no longer concerned about making too much noise. He just wanted to see an end to the metal stairs and stone walls. A third 402 in black letters was painted on the wall at the next landing. Figures bounced in his head — 402 times three equals 1,206. Was that feet? He had certainly descended farther than 1,206 feet. The muscles in his thighs burned. What could possibly be at the bottom of this shaft? Missile silos weren’t this deep. Chicago’s Deep Tunnel Project was only 350 feet underground. It took thirty years to build. How long has this shaft been here and how long did it take to dig? He may reach the bottom and find an unfinished shaft. If he had to turn around and run back up, he’d sooner put the gun to his head.
Ignoring the pain in his calves he increased his speed, taking less than one second per flight. He finally caught sight of a stone floor, an actual end to this monotony. Several yards from the last stair was a door. Breathing came in gasps, sweat glistened his skin. On the wall next to the door was the number 1,608, a familiar number. The number was in meters and equal to 5,280 feet. He was exactly one mile below the surface.

With one hand wrapped around the gun, he grabbed the door latch and slowly pulled. Light burst through forcing him to shield his face. Blinking the burning from his eyes, he rammed the door open and stepped out onto a walkway. Gun at the ready, he checked to the left and right of him but didn’t see any movement. Stretched in front of him was a cobblestone courtyard as wide as a four-lane highway. If there were people here, did they run for cover when they heard him coming? Or did something chase them away years before he arrived? Someone or something had to be operating the lights.

One-story buildings served as sentries on both sides of the courtyard, their marble fronts in an assortment of colors, metal doors painted. He ignored the fatigue in his legs while his senses picked up the chirping of birds in nearby trees, the rustling of leaves from a breeze that barely kissed his skin. Billowing clouds hung in a sunlit sky so blue it made his eyes sting. Stone benches lined the courtyard every ten feet. Dazed, he blinked quickly expecting the scene to disappear like a mirage, but it didn’t. Slowly circling like a lost tourist, his hand lost its grasp on the gym bag. It slipped from his hand and thudded to the cobblestone.  Three-story buildings in the distance jutted toward the sky, chrome facades gleaming in the sunlight. As he wandered into the center of the courtyard he scanned the surrounding buildings, checking windows and rooftops. A variety of sweet aromas filled the air from nearby ceramic flower urns. Yellow petals too yellow, pink petals too pink. The entire area was an amateur paint-by-number scene.

He holstered his gun, stumbled to the curb and dropped onto the nearest bench. He should have been questioning how all this could be happening. After all, he was sure he was a mile underground. Any normal person would have been questioning his sanity, exploring his surroundings, examining all possible explanations. Any sane person would have been mumbling impossible, ridiculous, absurd. But only one word came to Dagger’s mind:

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