The reactor is the heart of the bunker.

Its beating is the same as the sun's.

The Manuals of the Bunker, Vol. 1, Verse 28

A flurry of images of me falling into the abyss was brushed away by a flapping noise.

I opened my eyes, trading the nightmare for black nothing.

The bats were stirring.

My eyes craved light.

How late was it? How long had we slept? We had left the cavern in the morning. It might be evening now, or night.

There was only one way to find out. We had to sneak down and take a peek.

I nudged Amy as I got up, loosening my cramped muscles.

With little hope, I pulled at one of the door's handles. It still wouldn't budge.

Amy groaned.

As I stepped to the edge of the platform and reached out for the rungs, I had a vision of them being gone, of us being trapped up here.

When my hand found the slime-covered metal, I sighed in relief.

"Amy, you awake?"

"Relax, boy. Gimme a second. I'm not a morning gal."

"It's not morning. I hope it's evening."

"Whatever it is, it sucks fer real and begs to get smacked across—"

A faint clang of metal stopped her. It echoed up from below.

Surprised, I listened into the shaft, but all I heard now were the restless bats. Maybe, one of them had crashed into the ladder, banging its stupid head and ringing a rung.

Then it came again, a faint and distinct jingle.

"What's that?" Amy's question was a whisper.

"Don't know."

We waited. The sound repeated itself now at almost regular intervals, gaining volume with each ring.

Was someone climbing the ladder? Wolfe and his men? Or Amy's people? Had they survived, after all?

Or the Engineers? Would they need the ladder at all? When I had asked the priest at school if the Engineers were humans, he had told me they are what they choose to be.

But Amy had said they're human. And there had been an image of a man in a white coat in that moving picture in the shrine.

The bats grew even more restless as the noise got nearer. I stood back from the edge, afraid one of them would crash into me.

Amy's shoulder touched mine.

A faint, shifting glow flickered up the wall to the right, lending the abyss shape and structure. The shaft ran down along a gentle curve. The light crept up along its outer side.

I didn't see anyone—yet.

We had to hide. But where? A ceiling had materialized a few meters above our heads. And it crawled with small, skinny-winged creatures. A few took flight.

The bats.

The walls were smooth, and a white substance clung the one to the left, the inner one along the bend. That had to be batshit.

Amy turned to the door behind us, inspecting it once more.

Surrounded by a frame of dark metal, its concrete panel carried a picture in its upper half. The picture of a winged creature—rusty-red against gray, with talons and a fierce beak. I knew the figure.

"The Phoenix," I whispered.

The bird of evil.

Amy tried the handles without success.

Trying to ignore the bird, I inspected the frame around the panel. It was smooth but for a small slit, two fingers wide and too narrow to push one into it.

The light grew stronger, and a group of the bats took off in frantic flight, diving downwards.

Someone cursed below.

"When they get here, we kick them from the ladder," Amy whispered.

Maybe that slit in the frame held a mechanism to open the door. Desperate, I clawed at it, but there was nothing to move.

Itching sweat trickled down my skin. I scratched my chest, and my nails ran against something smooth and rectangular. The craner's amulet—I had all but forgotten about it.

It might be small enough to push into the slit and to operate it—if there was something to operate. I pulled it from my shirt.

"What's this?" she asked.

"It's the craner's."

The small bird on it matched the much larger one on the door. They looked exactly the same.

The clang of feet on rungs was almost upon us.

My hands shook as I inserted the amulet into the slit. It fit perfectly and slid against a stop. I pushed, hoping to release a mechanism, yet nothing moved.

But then a green light flashed in the slit, twice. A whirring sound came from the door.

Surprised, I took a step back, pulling the amulet from the slit by the band I still wore around my neck.

The slit was dark again.

Amy pulled the upper handle, and it pivoted. "It works."

I seized the lower one, and we both moved them into an upright position. With a small hiss, the door opened, revealing darkness beyond.

We crossed the threshold.

A clang from the shaft made me look back.

The copper hair was unmistakable. Wolfe stood on the ladder, his head at the height of the platform. He looked right at us. "Wait!" he said.

With a grunt, I closed the door, shutting out the light.

My hands found two similar levers on this side.

"Quick, we need to lock it," I said, "Take the handle below." I moved mine into the closed position.

"Done," Amy said.

I held my ear against the door. No noise penetrated it.

"Shite, the handle still moves," Amy said.

I nudged mine, and it didn't resist my pushing.

Still unlocked then.

There had to be something to lock the mechanism from this side. In the dark, I ran my hand along the door's frame, looking for another slit, but all I found was a metal bar or pipe along the wall close by. I pushed and pulled it, but it didn't move.

Something banged against the door's other side. Wolfe was on the platform now.

Was he alone?

"I'll bind this handle with the rope from the temple," I said. It was still wound around my waist.

I looped the rope between the lever and the metal bar. As I tried to knot its ends, I felt a tug.

Wolfe was operating the lever from the other side.

I let go of the rope, grabbed the lever, and pushed it back, putting all my weight into it. A muffled shout from the other side told me I had taken Wolfe by surprise.

In a hurry, I finished the knot and added another one for good measure, tying the lever. "Done."

Amy's hands touched mine as she felt out my work. "Will it hold?"

The handle made a rattling noise as it jerked back and forth, but the rope stayed in place.

Checking the knot again and finding it tight, I exhaled in relief. "Looks so."

"Good work, man."

Grinning with pride, I turned away from the door and peered ahead. Nothing but blackness peered back.

The rattling noises stopped. Had Wolfe given up? I doubted it—he wasn't the type to just give up.

"What is this place?" I was sick of the dark.

Amy clicked her tongue. "'Tis a tunnel."

"How do you know?"

"Just listen to the echoes. The way they jump forward."

"Jump forward?"

"Silly boy, ye know nothing. Let's go." Her hand touched my shoulder and ran down my arm. It stopped at my thumb and tugged.

When I tried to hold her hand, she let go.

Her footfalls moved away. She kept clicking her tongue.

Unwilling to stay behind by myself, I followed, touching the dry, smooth wall and probing the unknown ground with each step.

The door at my back rattled again, but the sound was fainter now.

"Let's hope there's no Gaths here," Amy said between her clicking. "Sometimes, when ye're in one of them abandoned tunnels, the air's all wrong. It can kill ye. Once I almost died. My mom said stale air can turn into Gaths. Gaths are like ghosts. The ghosts of the dead Engineers seeking revenge. Sam says he's seen one. 'Twas just bones and tattered skins, and its eyeballs, they were dangling—"

"Thanks, Amy, I get it." I held up a hand to stop her tale, but she wouldn't see that.

"Are ye 'fraid of Gaths?"

"Naw." I'd never been afraid of any Gaths because I'd never heard of them. But now that might change.

When my foot hit an obstacle, I almost jumped.

"End of the tunnel," she said, "but here's another door."

I stopped and groped around, touching walls and a cold metal surface ahead. I found a handle—a smaller one than in the door to the shaft. Amy's hand was already resting on it.

"No grabbing," she said.

I stepped back when a glowing crack broke open around the door's frame. Amy pulled the door, and it became a black outline against the illuminated room beyond.

She entered and looked left and right. "Smooth!"

I followed.