HOLLOW EARTH
EXPLORATION CLUB
Ended up giving her four food options:
“Drive-thru. Pizza place. Um-Tum-Tum’s. Legion.”
She didn’t look impressed with any of them honestly.
Told her the Legion had a good fish fry.
Think she assumed I was exaggerating.
Called my bluff.
So that’s where we went.
Couple drinks.
Fish was actually decent for once.
Mostly just small talk.
We were halfway through another round when one of the older Legion guys walked over.
Guy who’d helped me get into the storage sheds.
He looks at me.
Then looks at her.
Then says:
“So did you ever figure out what was in your grandfather’s storage box?”
The look she gave me said pretty much everything.
I just told her:
“That’s a conversation for a whole bottle of tequila.”
She didn’t answer.
Just finished her drink.
We walked back to the house mostly quiet.
Came in through the shop.
I went to use the bathroom.
When I came back out she was standing there holding the storage box.
Just looked at me and said:
“So where’s the tequila?”
And right then, I knew I was in deep shit.
We opened the box because ZM clearly wasn’t taking no for an answer once the tequila showed up.
Mostly paperwork at first.
Old notebooks. Maps. Photos. Technical notes.
Lot of radio stuff.
Frequency charts. Handwritten telemetry notes. Glider sketches.
ZM picked up on what this stuff was way faster than I did.
Kept sorting papers into little organized piles while asking questions I didn’t really have answers for.
She understood the structure of it immediately.
The documentation. The logging. The way everything was archived.
Said nobody keeps records like this for a hobby.
Think that’s about where I mentally checked out for the night.
Suddenly didn’t really want to hear theories anymore.
Grabbed the tequila.
Couple more shots.
She looked like she was just getting started.
I wasn’t.
Honestly just felt overwhelmed more than anything.
Like I accidentally stepped into the middle of something that was already moving long before I got there.
Right before we went inside she handed me one of the photographs from the box.
Group shot.
Four people standing around a table somewhere that looked cold enough to kill you.
Maps. Radios. Equipment.
Whole thing looked mid-70s maybe.
Back of the picture had names written in blue ink.
Half faded out.
“Mar 3 1978”
Couldn’t make out the rest.
Somebody had underlined “HEEC?” underneath it later in different handwriting.
But that wasn’t the part that got me.
The second I saw the writing I knew exactly whose it was.
My grandfather’s.
So now I’m sitting here writing this while she’s probably still out in the shop going through half a century of paperwork like some kind of caffeinated archaeologist.
I’m going to bed.