#digger dave

The front door of the shop has been locked for weeks now. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that I was not alone.

I've known for years that there was a peculiar metal hatch in the basement floor. I had tried to open it once, but it seemed to have been locked from the other side, and I gave it no more thought. I assumed that it was some sort of access opening for one of the many old utility tunnels beneath the city.

This morning, I heard a loud banging from the basement, followed by a long, metallic screech: The sound of rusty hinges opening after decades of neglect.

With some hesitation, I made my way down the stairs. Sure enough, in the far corner of the basement, a man in a miner's helmet was sitting on the floor, with his legs dangling down into the open hatch. A red bandana was wrapped around his face, covering his mouth and nose, as if he were some sort of underground desperado.

He looked up and saw me, the light atop the helmet shining into my eyes. The first thing he said was: "Not Tibet, right?"

"No," I replied.

"Tadfield?"

I shook my head.

"Atlantis?"

"You're being quite foolish. This is Chicago."

"Really?" he said. He switched off the light. "Well, that's not what I expected. Hard to keep track down there. And the distances! They never make sense. Did you know that Nepal is only a five-minute walk from Piccadilly Circus?"

"I am quite certain that is not correct."

He shrugged. "If you take the right tunnel, it's true." He took the helmet off and set it down on the floor beside him. "Mind if I sit and rest for a few minutes? Lots of walking in this job. Hang on." He dropped down into the opening and emerged a moment later, holding a shovel which he laid across his lap. "Never want to be too far from my shovel," he added. "Anyway... tough job. Very tiring."

"And what exactly is your job?" I asked.

"Officially, I'm a digger. You can call me Digger Dave. Truthfully, I don't do much actual digging these days, but that's still what they call me. It's my job to follow the tunnels and map them. See what we can learn from the Tibetans."

"The Tibetans?"

He nodded. "They're the ones who built the tunnel system. Well, at least, that's what we think. Some people say they were made by the Atlanteans. People from Atlantis, that is. Seems ridiculous to me."

Yes, I thought, much more ridiculous than the idea that it was the Tibetans who made the tunnel which goes from my bookstore to Piccadilly Circus and then to Nepal.

When I said nothing, he continued. "It's a lot of work, but it beats the hell out of my last job."

"And what was your last job?" I asked.

He looked from side to side, as if he were suddenly worried that we might not be alone. "Can you keep a secret?"

"Definitely."

His voice became a whisper. "I worked for the National Security Agency. I came up with code names."

"Code names?"

"Yeah," he said. "For government operations. Like 'Desert Storm,' or 'Rolling Thunder,' or 'Operation Urgent Fury.' I wasn't the one who came up with those, but you get the idea. My job was to name secret projects. It was so frustrating. I came up with some great names, but someone higher up -- I'm not going to say who -- someone higher wanted to use his own names for everything. Completely ignored the names we came up with, and used his own." He shook his head in irritation. "The real problem, in the grand scheme of things, was that he never took any advice from the intelligence services. He ignored all kinds of critical problems, and had his own bizarre ideas for operations he wanted us to work on. And the names he insisted on using added insult to injury. There was Operation Greatest Leader Ever. There was Operation Stable Genius. And Project Miracle-a-Lago, and Operation Believe Me Mine Is Huge, and Operation No One Has Ever Been Richer Than Me. And you know what else? What he really wanted to do was to use his own name. He wanted to slap his own name on absolutely everything. Obviously, for national security reasons, I can't tell you what his name was, but let's pretend it was Arnold Frump. It took weeks for his aides to get him to understand that if he used his own name, it really wasn't a code. Otherwise we would have had Operation Frump Hero, Operation Frump Goes Bigly, Operation High Stakes Frump..."

Digger Dave lifted the shovel and held it in front of him, staring at it in silence. When he spoke again, there was gratitude in his voice. "Thank heaven for this. This was always what got me through the tough times back at Third Street School, and it's what saves my sanity now. When the tunnel tracing job opened up, I put in for a transfer. Everybody knew I was well-qualified."

With that, he put his helmet back on. "I should probably get back to work. These tunnels aren't going to map themselves." As he descended into the opening, he looked at me one last time. "You know what's nice? Now I can make up code names for my own work. You can't predict where these tunnels lead, so at first I thought I'd call it Convoluted Matrix. Then I realized that what I'm doing isn't just about the tunnels. It's part of something larger. So I came up with a perfect name."

"And what is that?" I asked.