Prequel, part 2

~2450 E. Old Airport Road, Ely, Minnesota, later that night~

The call came in from the homeowner at 8:32 that night, and by the time the power crew had shown up the police department had already strung yellow tape around the property line and again along the boundaries of the sinkhole itself. The tape was tangled around trees and fenceposts as necessary, including one which held a dented-in pie tin, a favored target of the youngest Nyberg's wrist rocket.

The two policemen with their flashlights and the line crew with their powerful portable lights from the rig surveyed the hole. It was enormous.

"We're going to need daylight before we can survey the hole, its just too big to do in the dark like this," the line foreman Robert Ogaard announced. "We can see here, the underground cable snapped –"

"Is it safe?" one of the officers asked with a concerned look, his face half hidden in shadows. Behind him, his partner's radio squacked with a dispatch request.

"No ... no, we shut the line at the transformer. Break like this, we'll have to reroute though," Robert said, scanning the horizon for poles he could run a temporary loop through. "We had to bury it with the airport so close, we'll need a temporary permit to run it overhead. Should be no problem, its not on the main flight path."

As one of the officer's flashlight ran over the surface of the hole, it caught a glint of something and he held it there, fixing it intently for a full ten seconds before asking "What'dya think that there is?"

A few minutes later a rope was run down the sinkhole, and a harnessed and grinning lineman was snaking his way down. "Just like Ranger training!" he shouted enthusiastically as he expertly placed hands and feet. His contenance changed, however, when he picked up a piece of debris and held it up for inspection. Clutching it under one arm, he rapidly emerged from the hole with a grim face.

The first officer stared blankly at it, turning it over in his hands with a puzzled expression. "Well, that's different," he remarked laconically.

"Call the Sheriff and get a haz-mat team down here right away," Ogaard said, tapping it with his thumb. "It looks like some kind of rocket or jet part, who knows, maybe we might've stumbled here, stumbled on something buried when this was part of an air base back there in the 50's. No telling what's in there now."

"You betcha," the officer said as he fumbled for his radio, taking a few steps backwards. "You sure don't see something like that everyday, d'ya?"



~St. Louis County Sheriff's Department, Hibbing, Minneosta~

"So you think it may be an old command center, or some kind of buried hanger or something?" Sheriff Albrechtson pursed his lips as his hands shuffled through the photographs on his desk.

"You can see the regular smooth wall right there," Sergeant Perchich pointed it out on the picture in Albrechtson's hand. "But those are mighty odd looking jets, all spikey looking. Its like the Skunkworks or something. Hard to see with all the dirt, looks like the roof collapsed which is what caused that there sinkhole over there."

They'd already gone over the hazardous materials report. It must have been quite a shock for the citizens of Ely to have the bunnysuit men run through in their white van, but fortunately nothing was found. Nothing hazardous, that was - but the mystery only compounded.

"Well, it's in the air national guard's hands now, its their old base we stumbled into. That power line, it got rerouted, right? And the family ... Nybert? Nygaard? Insurance company has them in a motel, right? Well, nothing left to do then, lets go get some coffee and pie."

Edited by: Paid by the Word at: 4/20/06 6:49 pm