It had been around fifteen minutes after we had started to walk deeper into the mountainous forest before my back began to let out even more sweat, which must have been caused by the slowly intensifying sun ray combined with the high humidity of the area. Unlike when it was summer back in the U.S., my sweat just seemed to run down my body slower at the moment, something that made me a little uncomfortable. Thankfully, I still could feel the cool breeze of the mountain wind, most probably thanks to the property of the materials used to make my light body armor.
I noticed that neither Billy nor Jessica who were walking on the front and on the middle of the line respectively seemed to sweat like me, so it must have been due to their adjusted body towards the tropical climate. To alleviate my mind off the annoyance on my back, I asked Billy about the details that resulted in the decision to go to our next destination.
"Bill." I said to him. "What is it about the old mine station?"
"It is an abandoned mine station." He responded to me. "Possibly built back in late 1910s or early 1920s to extract stones, rocks, and sometimes, chalk."
Billy then explained that the mine station was built when the Dutch colonization had still taken place in the country. They would need the rocks and stones as supplementary building materials, especially for small posts around the area. However, by the time Indonesia had declared its independence, the mine was immediately abandoned since it was just too complicated to maintain it in the first place, not to mention that access to the mine from the nearest village was also difficult due to uneven terrains back then. He also mentioned that the Commander General could receive such information since he had contacted few local cartographers.
When he finished describing the mine station, he continued to share the information he had received from the Commander General. In estimation, the distance from the second village to there was around six kilometers, or roughly an hour of walking if we were not to rest along the way. Then, about three and half kilometers northwest of the mine station would be a river roughly twenty meters wide.
We would have to cross the river if we wanted to go to the higher ground with the shortest way. Thankfully, according to the cartographers there was a hanging bridge that would help us cross it although we also should not depend completely on the information since they also mentioned that it was last updated about three years before.
After we crossed the bridge, we should walk about one kilometer again to the north before we could see a disused small dam, also built during the Dutch colonization. There was actually nothing much there, except the fact that we would most likely had to ascend to the higher grounds from inside the dam since the other option was to literally climb a roughly fifty meters height of a cliff. Even if we were to break inside to the dam in order to get to the higher grounds, it should not pose much of a problem for us since many of the stuffs inside the dam would probably already rusty too.
The forest on the higher ground was supposedly a little less dense, and therefore we should be able to see the surroundings a little more clearly once we reached there. When Jessica heard it, she immediately confirmed that their second prehistoric site was about two kilometers towards the northeast from a cliff edge by a river.
With that said, the three of us finally had a clearer picture of our next main destinations. After that, I could feel like a stronger resolved atmosphere was present around us for the rest of our journey to the old mine station, although only faintly, and it was not until thirty minutes long before we could begin to see the mine station.
I would say that from quite some far distance, the old mine station would almost look like an abandoned rusty old factory, especially since it had what seemed to be a couple of tall and cylindrical chimneys, metallic windows and roofs, as well as a power station, most likely either of steam or diesel type. The only difference between the mine and the usual factories was their sizes, both overall and especially the power station. I would also say that even old factories would most likely have at least three times bigger than the size of the old mine station.
"Good thing we arrived at the mine station during the day." Jessica said to us. "It would be scary as hell if we did during the evening."
She did have a point though. Personally, I would not be surprised in the slightest should any of the floor platform inside the mine would collapse at any given time just by looking at the extreme level of rust from the outside. When we finally stepped our feet right in front of the mine entrance, it only risen my level of doubts as the rusty spots of the mine just kept on increasing as my eyes continue to glance at the whole condition of the abandoned facility.
"Well…" Billy said, as he took out his flashlight from his body armor pocket "time to use our flashlights again, I guess…"
I pushed the door with its glass broken with my submachine gun inside very slowly. Just as it began to move, I noticed right away that the hinges were also at its limits that it could break at any time and forcing the door to fall. Thankfully, the door managed to be opened without it falling down, and for safety and silent measures I told both Billy and Jessica to not close the doors, to which they agreed.
The first thing I did was none other to roughly estimate the area of the first floor. Referring to each of our own heights, the height of the first floor from the ground to the ceiling was probably somewhere close to eight feet. When we just came inside, none of us felt like it was cramped in the slightest but it was also not too wide, and so I estimated that the width was around twelve feet. As for the length of the room, I could not be so sure but I could guarantee that it was no more than fifty feet.
The next thing that I did, was to look at the interior of the first floor of the old mine station. To begin with, I could not use any other words aside from pretty much messed up to describe the first floor. The reason was because that there were so much small chunks of stone scattered unevenly across the whole room – on the weathered tables, rusted chairs, and even countless could be seen near every windows. It almost gave me an impression that the mine was abandoned due to have been viciously attacked by stones from either the workers or the villagers from outside.
Aside from the countless scattered stones, I noticed that the room barely has any walls at all. There was not even a single pillar standing anywhere on the room, and also not a single trace of a broken pillar could be found there, giving me another impression that the mine station was poorly built back then. Then again, the abandoned facility had an unusually small size in the first place anyway.
Every time I stepped my foot on the ground, it was always a metallic bumping sound that I heard, indicating that the floor was entirely made of metal, most possibly iron since the whole floor had an orange brownish color which was the usual color of a rusted iron. I looked up to the ceiling, and noticed right away that it was also only iron, with even few holes, suggesting that the rusting process had happened on the ceiling first, before another one started on the ground of the first floor.
"Want to split up and see anything useful that we can find here?" I asked Billy and Jessica.
"As long as it does not require any of us to go to the second floor, I do not mind." Jessica responded as she gestured her head towards the stairs right next to her.
I headed straight for one of the far corners of the mine station, towards one of the weathered table there since I had the feeling that some sort of the whole map of the facility could be standing there. Apparently, I was right to guess it since I immediately found one installed inside some sort of a glass panel. Although some spots of the panel were broken, I could still see the words on the map rather clearly. Unfortunately, since the map information was written only in Dutch and Indonesian language, I could not understand what the words meant.
"Uh, Bill… I need your assistance here…" I called out to him, who was searching each of the weathered table's drawers.
"Yeah. What is it?" He responded to me as he began to approach me.
"This is some kind of a map for the whole mine station, right? Can you tell me what does the information say?" I asked him.
"Nice. Just what we need…" Billy answered to me as he smiled a little, just before he began to explain in detail about the map.
According to the map, there were three main buildings in the whole facility. The first one was the main building, which was the only building that had two floors as well as the very same building that we were currently in. The next one, there was the power station which was fifty meters to the west of the main building. The last one was the storage building, where the miners used to store the mined resources, tools, as well as explosives. The building was located in the east about thirty meters from the main building.
"Explosives?" I asked to him as I frowned a little.
"Probably some sort of dynamites." Billy responded to me.
Just then, it occurred to me that if there were still few dynamites that could still work, they might be of some use to us sooner or later. I immediately asked his thoughts about it and he ended up agreeing with me, although he had his doubts first especially considering that it could be century old dynamites that we were talking about. As far as I had known, if the dynamites were stored inside an extremely impermeable storage, then there was still a good chance that the explosives could still work.
The three of us then headed out through the other door of the main building, and headed to where the storage should be. As it turned out, the storage building was in a far worse condition than the main building to the point that we felt like it would be useless to look for any explosives at all there. Nevertheless, Jessica suggested that we would look for them anyway since we had arrived.
If I had to describe the storage building in more details, I would say that it looked more like ruins than a building in my eyes. About nearly fifty percent of the roof had already been gone, and we would not even have to open any door since there was not even a single still standing there. Had all the doors even still standing and locked, we could still effortlessly enter the building since all of the window glasses had been completely broken, not to mention that there were also big holes on the walls.
Once we had entered the building, I could not even know for sure if the floor was also made out of iron or not, since most of it was already covered in moss and soil. There was nothing left inside what remained of the building, except that there were a couple of weathered boxes each locked with a rusty lock. Jessica then approached one of the boxes and broke the lock easily with her pickaxe, almost as if she was effortlessly.
"Ada?" Billy asked her if she found anything inside.
"Kosong���" She answered him and saying that there was nothing inside the box.
She then proceeded to break open the other box using the same technique. As soon as she opened the box, she mentioned that she found some sort of a very tightly wrapped thing inside. I then took it out of the box and opened it very carefully, and how I was relieved to see that there were four dynamites tied together.
The wrapping was also very dry, and I could even feel the thick dust covering the wrapping. I first asked if Billy wanted to hold the dynamites, to which he said that it would be better if the two of us hold two each. Jessica then mentioned that she had also brought a lighter with her, and with that we had then received an additional demolition power.
"Okay, so…" I then said. "Now that we have received another demolition power, any suggestions on where to go next?"
"The power station is west of the main building according to the map, right?" Billy responded by recalling the details shown on the map. "There was also a sign on the map that mentioned if we go further to the west, we will find a river."
"So that is where we will go. Okay." I replied and confirmed to him.
With the next destination had been decided, I immediately put two of the dynamites inside my backpack very carefully before we began to head west. Billy also proceeded to do the same, and when he finished he asked me if I did not mind to take the turn in leading the line, to which I gladly take. Having all of the dynamites packed up, we continued on our way to the mountain peak as the sun also slowly but surely continue to rise…