Chapter 4

As Melissa drove the van toward town, she and the explorers saw a large, unusual looking building. From above, it sort of looked like a lowercase “d”, with a 3-story, grey-brick circular building with windows joined to a long, windowless hall. Another building, a two-story, peeked out from behind it. The van made a left turn, passing a couple of crumbling factories to get to the building. As they got closer, they saw that only the top two floors were circular, and the bottom was a square footprint. All the explorers saw this building as a must-explore. Melissa turned left, and then left again, ignoring the long-deactivated traffic lights and parking in front of the building.

A concrete sign said “HELMINTOLLER MOTORS AUTOMOTIVE SAFETY RESEARCH CENTER”; about half of the glue-on letters had fallen onto the ground, but since the concrete itself was recessed in the shapes of the letters mounted to them, it was still clear what it said. The building was heavily overgrown and decayed; most of the windows were broken, the roof had holes in it and was missing most of its shingles, and ivy crawled up the entire height of the building. The parking lot and paved grounds were heavily cracked, with grasses growing through. Immediately next to the building, the once artfully arranged flowers, hedges, and cut grass had grown out of control, the grass now being about two feet tall. The explorers walked toward a collapsed awning and break in the overgrowth, carefully stepping over the metal remains of the awning to get to the entrance door.

A plaque next to the door said, “Dedicated December 3, 1973”.

“Looks pretty rough for 47 years old.” said Melissa.

The lobby floor was covered by ceiling tiles which had mostly turned to a strange mush that was an inch deep in some places; about 70% had fallen. Fluorescent lights were in the ceiling, some missing their covers. Moss grew in some places on the grey-tiled floor and ceiling tile mush. The white paint on the walls had almost entirely peeled off; in some places, the drywall itself had disintegrated due to water damage, revealing dirty cinder blocks. The floor above looked to be bowed down slightly. There were a few office chairs in the lobby; a water-damaged car safety newsletter, dated March 14, 1987, sat on an end table. The headline said, “GM plans 3 million driver air bags for 1992 models”. On the opposite wall was a directory; the first floor was a sled testing area and crash test observation area, the second floor was safety feature development, and the third floor was offices and the test library.

“Has anyone ever had an airbag go off on them? I hear the older ones hurt pretty bad, but the newer ones are a lot better.” asked Melissa.

“I have. They didn’t hurt me at all, but my car was a 2015 model.” said Megan.

“Glad you were okay.” said Melissa.

“I think it’s a good thing that we live in a world now where everyone has airbags. I’ve never had one go off on me, but my mom was saved by one in a major head on crash in 2001.” said Billy, who was filming the lobby and got a close-up of the newsletter, and would continue to film the rest of the building.

“Oh my! Glad the airbag saved her.” said Melissa.

Passing an elevator and going to the sled test area room, they found an occupant compartment of a car mounted to a rail that ran under the floor. Everything forward of the firewall, everything behind the rear seats, the doors, and the undercarriage had been removed, but the car had a boxy shape, much like a typical mid-1980s American midsize sedan. The floor in this room was solid concrete, and in much better shape than the tile floor in the lobby. A sticker on the car said, “032387 AIRBAG TEST”. The interior of the car had brown leather seats, and four deflated airbags hung out of the steering wheel, dashboard, and both front seat backs for the rear occupants.

“Did they ever put the rear seat airbag system in any production cars?” asked Billy.

“Not that I’m aware of. There would be safety concerns involving children, so that’s probably why they never put it in cars.” said Melissa.

“They probably could today with the much more advanced airbags in cars.” said Megan.  

“Airbags are a crock. If you’re a good driver, you don’t need them.” said Dirk.

“My mom is a good driver, but the 19-year-old drunk that crossed the center line and hit her wasn’t. They were in a dually pickup truck; my mom was in a ’96 Honda Accord. Her ankle was crushed, and she was in the hospital for several days, but the firefighters on the scene said the airbag saved her. I rest my case.” said Billy.

The explorers walked toward the back of the room, finding a part of the roof missing in the corner. Directly underneath the missing section of roof was an IBM PC XT computer. Pieces of roof and ceiling material covered the corner of the room and the computer; a small plant grew out of the computer’s keyboard.

“Somebody ought to send that thing to the 8-Bit Guy. It might still work with a deep cleaning and restoration.” said David.

The next room was an observation room for the crash hall; a large window, now broken, looked out of the room toward the barrier, and a glass door connected the room and the crash hall itself. A small room to the side of the observation room had the crash test controls. In the observation room, there was stadium-style seating in three rows of 20, sort of like in a modern movie theater, and four CRT monitors hanging from the ceiling labeled “CAMERA 1”, “CAMERA 2”, and “CAMERA 4”; the sticker for Camera 3 was gone.

At one end of the observation room, the floor above had fallen through, leaving a large hole that covered perhaps 25% of the ceiling area in the room. A strange object, about 7 feet tall and 10 feet wide at the base, had come through the floor and had landed on one end of the seating rows, crushing seats 1 through 5 in each row. The object itself was severely damaged, with cracks all over. The explorers went to look at the object, looking for any evidence of what it might have been.

The unmistakable green of computer boards shined through, and Megan found a badge on it. “It says Cray-1S. Looks like some kind of old supercomputer.” said Megan.

“Yup, Cray Supercomputer.” said Billy. He looked for any computer chips that may have been showing. “I see, I think, an 8107 on one of the chips. That’s 7^th week of 1981, so about February. So, they got a few years of use out of it.”

The explorers decided to look at the control room before going into the crash hall itself. Dirk hit the big red button that started the test, but, of course, it didn’t do anything. There wasn’t much to look at in the small room, so they went back out and went into the crash hall. The crash hall was a large room, about two stories high, with numerous holes in the roof. Pieces of metal and ceiling material covered the concrete floor, and the entire area was covered in a greenish grime. Next to the barrier, large lights, which once lit up crashing vehicles for the slow-mo cameras, had fallen to the ground and pulled a section of roof down with them. There was an underground rail that cars would be attached to guide them into the barrier.

The explorers carefully dodged the pieces of metal on the ground as they walked to the other end of the crash hall, the section where the cars would have started on their journey to doom. A midsize coupe, labeled “1988 Saber Supreme Prototype”, sat at the end of the runway, its tires deflated from decades of sitting. Two dummies sat in the driver and passenger seats, still in their seat belts and sitting up as straight as they had been 33 years ago, staring forward, waiting for an impact that would never come. The somewhat creepy humanoid figures, sitting in a dirty car, staring forward would make a great video thumbnail for one of Billy’s videos.

More dummies were against a wall, standing in racks; there were six adult size dummies and four dummies about the size of 3-year-olds. Just like the dummies in the car, they were eerily frozen in place despite the mess that had rained down on them for decades. A large metal cabinet was against another wall, with a computer and a notepad on it. The back wall, directly behind the car, had a large garage door; presumably, this is where cars that were destined to be crashed would come through.

Along the wall that joined the crash hall and main building, there was a staircase that led to the second floor. After about twenty minutes exploring the crash hall, the explorers had seen everything they’d wanted to see.

“Do you all feel comfortable going upstairs?” asked Melissa.

“This building’s sketchy.” said Megan.

“This building’s boring.” said Dirk.

Not wanting Megan to be left alone with Dirk, David decided to stay downstairs. “I’m going to stay with them.” said David.

“This is probably one of my favorite buildings I’ve ever been in. I want to see upstairs.” said Billy.

“Just remember to let me know where you’re going with the walkie talkies. I’m going to stay with Billy.” said Melissa.

“Mama’s boy.” said Dirk.

“She’s not my mom.” said Billy.

Billy began climbing the stairs, with Melissa following. Billy opened the door to the second floor. It led into a hallway that was in significantly worse condition than the first-floor rooms had been. The floor was the same grey tile as had been in the lobby, and the same ceiling tile mush covered parts of it. The same peeling white paint was on the walls, but these walls were standard house-style wood construction. The walls were a strange mix of paint, exposed plaster, and even exposed wood, depending on how much water damage was in that spot. There was a small hole in part of the ceiling.

Billy stayed to the left side of the hallway; Melissa took the other side, both staying close to the walls where the floor was strongest. A door was labeled “Passive Restraint Development” to the left. Billy opened it, and both walked into the room.

In the center of the room was a cutaway of the dashboard and front seating areas of a car. The floor was sagging under the car, so they didn’t go near it, but they could see that it had automatic seat belts because the driver’s seat belt was extended forward, but the passenger’s seat belt was buckled normally.

“Those automatic seat belts. I hated those. The regular seat belts, ironically, are so much more convenient.” said Melissa.

“Never had one in my family that I can remember. They were federally mandated for a while in the early ‘90s on cars without airbags, but eventually they just required airbags.” said Billy.

“Yeah, my ’90 Accord had them. They were a pain in the neck. I, and most people I knew, wore their seat belts then anyway.” said Melissa.

In one corner of the room were three Macintosh SE computers on desks, each with a black leather chair, all connected to a printer. There was no drafting table to be found – the facility had gone full AutoCAD. A whiteboard on another wall still had lots written on it; the deadline for the revised seat belt design to be finalized on the 1989 “WF-20” sedan was June 30, 1987 – the targeted HICs in a 35-mph frontal crash test were below 700. The ’88 Saber Supreme, the car they’d seen in the crash hall, was scheduled for testing March 31, 1987. On the top of the whiteboard, in red letters, said “COMPUTER SWITCHOVER MONDAY, MARCH 23 – OLD COMPUTERS WILL BE REMOVED AFTER FRIDAY, MARCH 20”.

“Wow, those computers were only used for a week. What a waste.” said Billy.

“I bet we’ve seen millions of dollars of stuff left to rot already.” said Melissa.

“I want to ask you your story of evacuating, but I’ll savor the mystery for now.” said Billy.

“Whenever you’re ready.” said Melissa.

In another corner of the room, right next to where Melissa and Billy were, was a car dashboard, with dual airbags deployed from it, inflated for display purposes. Both were both amazed that the bags had stayed inflated for so long and a bit miffed that airbags hadn’t been implemented in most new vehicles by 1987. As Billy filmed the room, he noticed that his memory card in his camera could store only 26 more minutes of video, giving this building’s exploration new urgency.

Billy attempted to reach under the passenger airbag and open the glove box, but the bag was too firm. In fact, the bag covered both the glove box and the entire center stack of the dashboard; combined with the driver bag, little on the dashboard was visible. The passenger bag came out over 3 feet deep from the dash.

“Gosh, I hope your passenger airbag isn’t that big, or mine. That could kill someone.” said Billy.

“I wouldn’t think they would be. I bought my cars because of the high safety ratings. I’m an Uber driver and have passengers in and out of my car all the time, and if we get in a crash, I want me and them to be as protected as possible. Can’t have that with an airbag that gives you a Mike Tyson punch.” said Melissa.

“What cars do you have?” asked Billy.

“The 2018 Honda Odyssey Elite I brought on this trip, and a 2020 Honda Accord Touring” said Melissa.

“Nice cars.” said Billy.

They left the room and decided to go into another room labeled “Structural Development”.

“This building certainly needs some structural development.” said Billy. Melissa laughed.

This room was approximately in the same condition as the passive restraint room, and was laid out similarly, except instead of seatbelts and airbags on display, it was the frame of a car, the same one they’d seen in the passenger restraint room.

Billy decided to give the room a once-over with his camera and go to the next room, the “Accident Avoidance” room. Again, it was laid out like the other two rooms on that floor, except with brakes and suspension systems, but was in worse shape. The floor had a large crack that extended across the middle of the room, and its center was sagging severely; crossing to the back half of the room would be suicidal. Billy took a close look at two anti-lock brakes that had been taken from cars. One was labeled “Production”, and the other “Concept”; both looked quite like one another. Billy was stumped; the only reason he could come up with is that maybe the new design was cheaper.

The last major room on the second floor of this building was the Supercomputing Room, though the floor directory said that there was a second instance of each of the four major rooms, as well as several minor office rooms, storage rooms, and the like, meaning that perhaps only a third of the total square footage of the floor had been explored. Given the poor condition of the building and the limited time of the trip, Billy didn’t want to explore rooms that would largely be duplicates or ones with nothing interesting in them.

Billy opened the door, and most of the floor was gone, including the section directly in front of the door. He and Melissa looked inside the room. Against the right wall of the room, on the sole section of intact floor, were six terminals, with black leather chairs behind them. Instructions for the supercomputer’s operation still hung on the walls next to where the supercomputer had been. There was a hole in the roof, about one-foot square, above the collapsed section of floor. A slow drip of water came from a corner of the hole.

“All those years of water dripping down must have weakened the floor, and it just couldn’t hold that heavy computer anymore.” said Melissa.

“That thing’s probably several tons and has less power than my smartphone. The ‘80s was a long time ago, in more ways than one.” said Billy.

Leaving the room, they found the building’s central staircase. It looked passable, but in rough condition, with lots of debris and a few small holes in some of the steps.

“Can we go to the third floor?” asked Billy.

Melissa approved, and they carefully climbed the steps, which moved unsettlingly. When they reached the steps, the library doors were directly in front of them, meaning that the library was on the opposite side of the third floor than where they’d explored on the second, and thus a totally unknown quantity.

The section of floor nearest the door was still stable, but the floor was warped and buckled across most of the library. Some of the bookcases had tipped over, and a few had even fallen through a hole in the floor. The room was well-lit; most of the glass panes in the skylight directly above the hole in the floor had broken out, and there were various other small holes in the roof. The only intact section of ceiling was near that same section near the door; the rest of the ceiling was entirely gone.

“When I get back into town, I’m going to see about getting all of these books and documents taken out of this library by someone with specialized equipment. The urban explorer’s creed is to take only pictures and leave only footprints, but these are irreplaceable documents that are (puts her fingers very close together) this close to disappearing forever. Another two years and this floor’s going to be all gone. I wouldn’t go into this room if I were you.” said Melissa.

Against Melissa’s advice, Billy studied the room and decided to walk toward a section labeled “Technical Documents”. He found what appeared to be a beam under the floor and carefully walked on it; Melissa walked on another beam, about two feet to his left, ready to grab Billy if the beam gave way. He got to the documents, which were labeled chronologically, and grabbed a handful that dated to late 1986. Just as he withdrew his hand, he heard a loud bang underneath him. Then, his body moved back rapidly. Billy looked, and saw Melissa’s hands tightly clamped around his left arm and right shoulder. Standing on a more stable patch of floor, Billy saw that the floor where he’d been standing had no additional damage.

“False alarm? Whatever it is, I’m getting the **** out of here.” said Billy.  

While they were leaving the library, Melissa’s walkie-talkie buzzed to life.

“Perfect timing.” said Billy

“We found a computer chip fab. Me and Dirk want to go inside it.” said David.

“Where’s it at, and what identifying features does it have?” asked Melissa.

“It says Commander Computer, it’s a brick building, and it’s directly to the right of the crash test lab if you’re looking at it from the front.” said David.

“All right, you can go ahead and go in, we’ll be there in a few minutes.” said Melissa.