George heard the gunfire just as he reached the top of the steps. Horrified, he saw Munro close the gap and tear into Rick before he could bring his own gun to bear on the fast moving Scot.

He ran to Rick but was beaten away by a burst of gunfire that blew chunks of concrete out of the floor by his feet.

"Get down!" he screamed at the children and he darted behind one of the nearby control stations. More shots followed him, blasting pieces of the control station's desk off into the darkness at the edge of the room.

***

Charlie and Carmen fell backwards down the steps, tumbling over each other in their desperation to get out of the way of the fire-fight. They scrabbled around in the darkness and crouched at the foot of the steps, ears cocked, straining to hear, to understand, what was happening above.

***

What was happening was simply awful, as far as George was concerned. He was pinned down and no mistake. He knew his friend was dying out there and there was nothing that he could do. If there was nothing you could do then you might as well go down fighting. Banking on Savanarolova not being able to take him down immediately, he braced himself for the hits he expected to take. Having decided on his course of action, he ensured his gun was cocked and ready to fire. He prepared to leap from his cover and attack.

Without warning another gun opened fire. Loud, serious discharges could be heard from the other side of the room. Puzzled, George risked a quick look and saw Suzuki standing in the Production Floor entrance, methodically firing an Arisaka rifle at where he presumed Savanarolova was.

Suzuki smiled and nodded quickly at George as if to say sorry.

It'll take a little more than that, George thought but he was gratified to see the little man all the same. Knowing that time was of the essence, George sprinted across to where Rick lay with the grunting Munro on top on him.

"Step away or I'll fire!" he screamed. George stopped and raised the muzzle of his sub-machine gun so that it was barely a hands-breadth from Munro's head. Rick was pale and still, his eyes open. At first, George thought his old friend was dead but there was a flicker of movement in his fingers, which pulled at Munro's hand.

He pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened. There was a simply a horrible click but the gun did not fire. A stoppage at this time?

With a scream of frustration, George rapidly reversed the jammed gun, holding it by its barrel and swung it like a cricket bat, driving the stock full into Munro's face.

The huge Scotsman yowled in pain and rolled off Rick. He crawled away from George, who followed up his first strike with another, snapping Munro's head back with an accompanying crunch of bone as his jaw broke. It wasn't just Munro's jaw that broke either. George's gun hung from his hands in two pieces. Cursing, he threw them aside and grabbed Munro by his bloodied shirt, hoisting him to his feet as if he were a child.

"I've never liked haggis and I don't like you!" George muttered and swung his fist back. Driving it forward, he punched Munro full in the face, knocking him back against the wall of the Confinement Chamber.

He pulled back his fist for another punch but paused in surprise. Behind Munro a thin red line had appeared that ran along from the top to bottom of the Confinement Chamber. It very quickly changed from red to a fierce, incandescent yellow. Alarmed, George stepped back from Munro and kept retreating until he got to Rick, who lay like a stranded fish, his chest heaving, gasping for air.

Another shot rang out from Suzuki, who appeared to be unaware of the change in the Confinement Chamber's appearance, and he heard Savanarolova cursing the old man, but George's attention was still fixed on what was happening behind Munro.

The Scot was in a sorry state. At last, the bullet wounds were taking their toll and he seemed as groggy from them as he was from George's savagery. Drunkenly, he looked up at George and lisped through broken teeth, "W..wait...t...till I get my breath back, you piece of filth! I'll see you!"

That was when the Confinement Chamber split open. Not by much, but suddenly, where there had been a hairline crack of painfully bright light, there was now a yawning gap at least a foot wide. Burning heat poured from the interior of the chamber and intense light flooded the Production Floor, casting black shadows where it could not reach.

Munro screamed as the furnace behind him roasted his back. He would have recoiled from the pain and bolted away from the Confinement Chamber but for what happened next.

Within the blaze something moved. Weird slender tendrils, white hot and whip-like, flickered out of the burning gap and encircled the Scot in their scorching embrace. Screaming, Munro writhed in agony as Rick and George looked on in shock, their bodies washed with searing heat. The tendrils settled then snapped back, jerking against the tortured man. With inexorable force, Munro was pulled within the Confinement Chamber, despite his frantic attempts to grab at the edge of the opening with his hands, his screams eventually dying away, leaving nothing but an empty, horrified silence.

***

"You cannot stop it now!" Suzuki yelled at George from the other side of the room. "It's loose! Get away from here as fast as you can! If you go below, follow the main catwalk to the other side of the cavern. You'll find the emergency exit that way! I'll keep the devil woman busy!" He punctuated this statement with another shot at Savanarolova's hiding place.

"What about the safety valve?" Rick whispered up at George, his neck was a ruin with bloody gouges cut into it from the Scotsman's hands and his throat burned with pain.

"The safety valve?"

"Ask Suzuki about the safety valve. There must be one!" Rick coughed.

George yelled across at the old man who shook his head. Trying again, George tried to make himself understood. At last Suzuki understood and pointed at his feet.

"It's below by the main feed pipe. The one that enters the Confinement Chamber but you'll never open it! It was jammed shut the day that the janjanbi appeared!"

"Well, we'll just have to get to work then," Rick grimaced at George. "Because if that thing gets loose we're all gonna be joining the Crispy Critter Club."

From within the Confinement Chamber came an ear-splitting shriek. Over and over again the same piercing call ripped the air, tearing at the eardrums of those who heard it. Rick pressed his eyes almost shut against the glare from the open Chamber and tired to see what was happening within. There was something alight inside, something large and sinuous that writhed worm-like in a continuous swirling boil.

"I think we'd better go, Rick," George gasped over the heat, sweat drenching his face and clothes. "Its getting hotter and I don't like the noise that thing's making."

Rick agreed. They picked up their meagre belongings, as well as Savanarolova's and Munro's rucksacks and headed quickly to the stairwell. At the top of the steps, Rick turned and looked back at Suzuki.

The old man nodded again, smiled and shrugged as if to say "no matter, you tried your best." He raised the rifle and took another shot at Savanarolova, which must have stuck close to her because a storm of curses flew from her hiding place.

Rick raised his hand in farewell, took one last look at the Production Floor, which now had the appearance of a steel foundry, bathed as it wash in a fierce orange glow.

***

Carmen ran into her father's arms as they clattered down the steps into the lower cavern. Charlie held back but looked at his father with something approaching awe.

"Come on, kids, you've got work to do!" said George, then, when he saw their anxious faces, barked, "Questions later!"

The group headed to the centre of the cavern on the catwalk, their footsteps echoing hollowly in the vast space. Narrow gangways, other wider catwalks, led off to follow the other huge radiating pipes that ran from the centre artery. As they closed on this massive, central column, they began to appreciate just how huge it was.

"Why is it so big?" asked Charlie, in awe of the huge structure.

"It's designed to let a dragon run up and down it, like a hamster in its cage." Rick answered hoarsely. "I presume it's so big because the walls will be incredibly thick to withstand high temperatures."

"And they're pretty high judging by what's going on upstairs," George butted in. "We've got to move, Rick!"

Another terrifying screech blasted their ears, the volume barely reduced by the intervening layers of concrete that made up the Production Floor's structure. The call resonated around the cavern. It was almost as if the other pens were occupied too and their inmates answered their sister above. Hopefully those pens were really empty.

When they reached the column, the catwalk fanned out and encircled it. Rick quickly trotted round the perimeter of the massive pipe in his search for the "safety valve".

"What's he looking for, Charlie?" Carmen asked.

Charlie could only shrug his shoulders but George answered, "He's after some kind of emergency stop, a safety valve if you like."

Rick returned at this point and grinned. This smile was thrown into sharp relief when suddenly the dim blue glow of the lamps flashed into bright yellow light. The children cried out in surprise and the men flinched but it quickly became clear that the light emanated from old industrial lights and not some supernatural visitor.

His smile replaced by something more haunted, Rick said, "The designers of this place have just shown their hand. What this place really was designed to do. It's not just a research facility for something pretty damned amazing! It's a power station too. The dragon's awake. The lights come on. It doesn't take Einstein to work out that the two are connected."

"Any power generating facility has to have some kind of safety valve - some kind of switch that you throw when things get out of hand to release the pressure, or whatever. For example, a dam has sluice gates if the water level gets too high. You open the sluice gates to reduce the water pressure on the dam, which could damage it otherwise. You use that water moving through the gate to generate power."

"I don't know how this facility works. God knows what they were doing to a dragon here but I do know one thing. That pipe goes straight down into the heart of a volcano and I'd bet you all a million dollars that the designers intended to dump that beast down that pipe if things got out of hand."

"Why didn't they?" asked Carmen.

"Because it wasn't the dragon that went pear shaped. It was the arrival of the US of A. The dragon was apparently injured, or sick or something, if you believe Savanarolova. As far as the bunker staff were concerned, everything was A OK! The beast was locked up in its pen near death. I guess all these other pens were built with a view to the future since they knew they had a female dragon with eggs."

"So what's going on upstairs, now?" said Charlie.

"Everything's going pear shaped! That dragon has been resting and recuperating for over eighty years. I presume that whatever ailed it is now no longer an issue and it wants out. If it gets out, according to Suzuki, we've had it. And it's pretty close to doing that from what we saw upstairs. We've got to get away but to have the slightest chance we've got to activate the safety valve, open the sluice gates, trip the switch or what have you."

"Well then let's get on with it," said Charlie.

"No boy, this is not your job. You and Carmen are to go out of the emergency exit. It's at the end of this walkway if Suzuki is to be believed. Get out of here and get to the Catalina. Maybe you'll be safe there but I need to know you're not here if that thing breaks out."

Charlie looked at his father in the harsh light of the cavern's overhead lamps. Rick's eyes were in shadow but Charlie could see the trail of tears cutting through the grime of smoke and sweat.

"I don't want to leave you, Dad," he said meekly.

"I know," his father said, "I know. But you need to go with Carmen now and put as much distance between this volcano and you as possible."

"Dad?" Carmen whimpered.

George stepped up to his daughter and curled his huge arms around her. "Go with Charlie. Stay safe and I'll see you in a bit," he said gruffly, his voice thick with emotion.

"Go, kids, go now and don't look back!" Rick ordered and gently pushed the children along the catwalk in the direction they need to go. "Head to the Catalina. Stop for nothing! Now GO!"

Crying their eyes out, Charlie and Carmen stumbled along the metal walkway, almost collapsing at the end by yet another thick steel door. Having now seen these in operation, they operated its locking wheel through a thick veil of tears, and passed through into a well lit, narrow concrete passage that led down. Intermittently, staircases punctuated their journey that only continued down, never up.

***

After Rick and George watched the children stumble away, Rick slapped George on the shoulders and said, "Come on, Big Guy, one more job and then we go home."

George nodded sadly. A nagging thought gnawed at him. Deep inside, he knew that he would never see his daughter again.

The two men turned and faced the main pipe. Almost hidden against the vast concrete structure was a set of rungs that led down into the cavern below. With an audible sigh, in turn they swung themselves over the edge of the catwalk and, grasping the rungs, descended into the dark, just as another terrible cry from the prisoner of the Confinement Chamber cut through the air.

---

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