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35. Seriously

Courage is lack of planning.

The Manuals of the Bunker, Vol. 3, Verse 42

The door into the bunker stood open, just like we had left it.

We approached it carefully. I half-expected Wolfe to appear from the cramped room on its other side.

But he didn't.

Nor did we see him through the small window of the inner door.

Amy tried to turn its handle, but it was blocked.

"I think we first need to close the outer door." I did so, and the inner light turned from red to green. "When one door is open, the other one is locked."

"Why's that?"

"I don't know." I gestured at the inner door. "Try opening it."

"Now, it moves." She turned its wheel. "Ye're smarter than ye look."

"Careful!" I stepped to her side and slowed her down. "We don't know what's on the other side."

Once the door was unlocked, we pulled it towards us. I leaned my shoulder against it, ready to push it close if someone were to attack.

But there was no one. The room with the lockers was empty. And so was the tunnel beyond. We followed it back the way we had come.

The air smelled old and moldy, not like the one on the surface.

"Do you think Wolfe has left?" Amy whispered as we approached the stairs that would take us down to the quarters of the Engineers.

"I don't know."

"He probably shat his pants." She snickered. "And he's now back at home, scrubbing them."

As we reached the stairwell, we listened. The faint hum of the machines filled the air.

When we began to descend, the structure groaned under our weight.

"Crap," Amy said.

We waited, but Wolfe failed to appear. So we continued. I gritted my teeth at every noise we made. But we reached the bottom of the stairwell without anyone attacking us.

"If he were still here, he'd have come running," Amy said.

"Right." I still whispered, though. "Let's go to the control room."

We entered, finding it unchanged.

I grabbed volume 1 of the manuals and squeezed it into the backpack, wedging it between some apples from the surface. "We need something to prove our story."

"Ye really think this will impress them?"

"I don't know," I said. "But everyone with eyes in their head should see that this manual is genuine. Only the Engineers wrote like that." And the one the bishop had was fake—anyone could have written it.

She pulled the pistol from her pants and pointed it at one of the glowing panels. It showed the city of the upper cavern. "I've got better arguments than yer manuals."

"True, you're very convincing with that." I slung the pack onto my back, its straps cutting into my shoulders. "Come on. Let's go." Impatient to move on, I led the way out of the control room.

Amy lingered at its door, stowing the weapon away and looking back. "Look at all them buttons."

"There's no time to try them now. We'll return. Later." I wasn't convinced of her button pushing skills.

"Promise?"

"Yes." What else could I say?

"Good boy." She smiled.

"Good... girl."

Raising an eyebrow under her stripe of warpaint, she brushed past me and headed for the tunnel leading to the bat-infested shaft. It was dark there, but she found a button close to its entrance. With a grin, she pushed it, and a row of lamps along the ceiling came on, illuminating its length.

In the light, the tunnel was much shorter than I remembered.

The door to the bat shaft was closed. My rope was still tied to the pipe at its frame, but its other end hung loose.

"What a great knot," Amy said.

"It was dark. I didn't see what I was doing." I ran my fingers over a small slit in a metal box mounted to the wall next to the door. I touched the bird amulet on my chest, sure it would fit there. "I guess we could have locked this with our amulets."

"Is what that woman did, the crispy one over in her bed." Amy pointed her thumb behind her. "When she escaped 'ere, with the church people snapping at her heels, trying to snuff her. She locked the place up. It didn't help her, though."

"Anne." I did remember her letter to Shawn and briefly wondered what their story was. Were they lovers? Her last words of goodbye never reaching him?

We might never know.

I tried the handle, and it yielded when I pushed.

Slowly, I opened the door and peered into the opening gap. The bats above stirred, startled by the light from the tunnel. Their stink invaded my nose. Ever since our return, the air in the bunker had smelled stale and lifeless, but here in the shaft, its rank stench almost made me gag.

The rungs of the ladder led into the darkness below.

"Do ye see any button for the light on this side?" Amy asked.

"Nope."

"My lighter still doesn't work."

"Then, we'll have to face the darkness. Again." Clenching my jaws, I stepped onto the rungs, revolted by the slippery bat shit clinging to them. "But we know the way."

"Shouldn't we try to lock the door?" Amy held up her amulet.

I considered her question, and then I shook my head. "No, let's leave it open. If we lock it, no one can ever get out of here unless they know about the amulets."

"But we'll show them," she said.

"And what if they don't want to listen?" Or if they wouldn't even let us talk?

If anything went wrong, and we didn't make it, everyone would be trapped down there forever.

"I'll make them listen." She patted her gun.

Hoping she was right, I started the descent.

Darkness was quick to enfold us, and the light above soon disappeared around the gentle bend of the shaft.

After each rung, I reached into the dark to the left of me, afraid to miss the platform to the upper cavern. Yet when I finally found it, its cold, hard touch startled me.

"Here it is." I clambered over, located the door, and pushed its handle.

It didn't budge. I tried again. It still didn't move.

"It won't open."

Amy crouched beside me and pushed, too. She grunted. "Damn. They must have blocked it from the other side."

"Wolfe."

"Yes, his hurting head and balls must have scared 'im shitless of anything coming from this side." She snorted. "And he ain't dumb."

"Do you think it's still daytime?" I asked. The trial might already be over.

"Afternoon, maybe?"

"Let's try the lower cavern," I said. "And let's hurry."

"Okay." She moved back to the ladder, and I followed her.

When we finally reached the lower platform, our breathing was loud enough to fill the darkness around us.

The door here opened easily, and the light flooding us was a relief.

I clambered out onto the ledge and hesitated at the mix of familiarity and strangeness of the scene before us. It was day, and the village still hugged the dark wall behind it as it if nothing had changed. But the gardens looked so small to me now. And their plants had a sickly sheen in the weak light, so different from the surface.

Three of the swamps lay flat and undisturbed. The fourth one was a black maw, dug out, with heaps of earth and rock surrounding it.

This didn't look like home.

And it stank. Amy was right about that.

Before us, the ledge fell away to the ground many meters below. But on our right side, it went from the door all the way to the chutes. Pressing myself against the wall, I moved over to them.

Above me, the chutes emerged from a dark opening in the ceiling where they came from the upper cavern.

I had hoped to find some handholds, rungs, or steps here. In vain—there was just no way to climb the smooth, dark surfaces.

"We have to go down here," I whispered.

Meters below, two figures shoveled muck into wheelbarrows. They were bent over their work, and I couldn't discern who they were.

"Seriously?" She spat and watched the glob of spittle dwindle as it fell.

"Yes."

We were running out of time. And the more I thought about it, the crazier our plan looked.

But it was the only plan we had.

I took a deep breath and jumped into the chute.

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