He didn't know how he had arrived here. He couldn't recall the traffic lights or buses or trains--none of the particulars--but he did recall the sounds he heard daily, weekly, now stretching into the second month ... the sounds that had cost him his job and his sanity. The sounds had begun when the old Maramar Hotel had been demolished and the planned Gordon Towers was begun, just after the deepest foundation moorings were dug, far below the former foundations. The noises sounded like straining, muffled voices, the cries of people sometimes. They pleaded with Weitzel for understanding, but the voices were in some strange language he did not know or understand. The cries came from deep within the earth below street level. Either that, or he was indeed mad, and the sounds came only from his addled brain. Either way, he was drawn here like a somnolent zombie to its lord. "What in God's name am I doing here?" he asked the empty, mud-packed pit below the towering buildings on either side of him.
