Jason had been waiting for her with two security guards in front of the building they were about to access. The weather had broken down mid-morning, and he had been keen on getting inside as soon as possible. When Pax walked up to him, Jason noticed she looked troubled.

"Annoyed and concerned, not troubled," her voice had been a bit off, uncontrollably dry. She greeted the security and asked for a preliminary report.

A short, muscular man took the lead in answering. "The facade was barely standing, as the interior had been pretty much destroyed. The shop where we found the only victim was completely burned, connected to the interior, which was, well... you will have to see for yourself. It was dangerous, so be careful and stay in contact at all times. We didn't need any more casualties."

"Agreed," she responded swiftly and turned to Jason. "Were the others on the ship?" He nodded after a minute of consideration.

"Prometheus, come in," Pax voiced into her communication band. She was faced with static and silence.

"Prometheus com-"

"I hear you," it was Caelius' voice.

"I'm transmitting you a data signal. Can you patch it through the main computer and record everything? It's important."

"Will do." The voice link cut abruptly. The blackened building waited for them silently. Parts of the facade collapsed under its own weight, preventing any access to the upper floors. The main entrance still had some paint in places, but the rest either flaked or cracked under the heat. From where they stood, it was visible that the first floor collapsed, cutting off the main staircase.

It seemed that Nyx's shop was the only way they could use. Although it had already been a number of days since the explosion, they took breathing masks as a precaution and climbing gear per the security guard's advice.

The blackened shop interior welcomed them with silence, interrupted by cracks and air whistling through the damaged structure. Once a tall and spacious shop, it now hid in soot that refracted light, changing its shape and dimension. It was almost impossible to guess what Nyx used to sell here, as everything had turned into dust and charcoal. Both of them worked on their arm computers, gathering data and increasing the yield of information they were getting. Finally, they passed the threshold of daylight and succumbed to the semi-darkness of the ruin.

"We are out of your sight now. Standby for updates."

"Confirmed, detective. Be careful there. The structure isn't too stable in places."

Once they found a path through the shop, they also discovered a second exit that connected to the foyer they saw from outside. Pax had to turn around a few times, looking in all directions, amazed and horrified at the destructive power of the explosion. Many of the upper-level balconies collapsed together with sections of the roof, leaving a large gap providing enough natural light. Her computer analysed the area and showed an increased concentration of the explosive material on the other side of the automated stairway that connected all of the levels. Still circling and trying to find more readings, she moved there, only to be finally stopped by Jason's hand pulling her back.

"Look." He shook his head, pointing his light at the collapsed floor that encompassed most of the area, going down at least three or four levels or lower. They couldn't see as the beam wasn't strong enough to penetrate the dust particles floating in the air.

"This is not what I expected." She took a deep breath, leaning slightly forward, staring into the depth. "Thanks," Pax added. "If you didn't stop me, I'd probably be at the bottom of that hole right now."

He didn't reply, and they stayed in silence, only interrupted by the metal clicking of the climbing equipment they were preparing, and the wind playing with the corpse of the ruin.

"I should apologise to you for what I said in the mines," Pax intoned slowly.

"It's fine." Jason cut it quickly, ensuring his ropes are attached well.

"No, it's not." Pax pressed, struggling with hers. "I'm not very good at this... I... I'm not very good at this."

"What? People stuff?" He giggled lightly, helping her with one last element.

"Yeah, people stuff." She nodded unconsciously, thinking about Ino and Athamo, and how long it took them to reach her. But these two were persistent. "I do have friends, you know. It just takes me a long time to trust people."

"Well... this is progress."

"I am practising. I may get good at this social chat thing one day." Pax smiled faintly, feeling that he forgave her, or started forgiving.

"Good." He grinned at her.

"Good." Silence fell for a few minutes as they both looked back into the darkness, getting ready, not physically, but mentally.

"Descending into the chasm," Pax spoke out loud into her bracelet. She gave a nod to Jason, and both of them carefully dropped over the edge, holding onto their ropes, which were stabilised to two miniaturised climbing cranes able to withstand a lot of weight stress.

"Confirmed, detective. Be careful down there."

The descent was slow, giving them enough time to register everything they saw. The chasm must have opened during the explosion, collapsing four levels, but Pax wasn't sure as the darkness slowly swallowed everything as they got lower, and there was less natural light getting there. As their arm lights turned on automatically, they were able to see corridors and destroyed rooms around them. All covered with soot, peeling paint, and dust. There was an odd nightmarish feeling that someone was watching them, and she tried not to look into one space for too long. Darkness like this had its way with the human mind.

"So, what made you do it?" Jason's voice came as a surprise in the thick envelope of silence that surrounded them. "You know, apologise?". They passed another level before she answered.

"Your friend Caelius inspired me. Just before the landing on Earth, he apologised. I'm sure he had plenty of persuasive help from Thalia. But, I had a gut feeling that if someone as stubborn as he can manage it, so should I, right?"

"Did he?" There was a laugh in his voice. "He is not my friend though, but it's good to know. Don't know any more stubborn than him."

"I thought you three are friends".

"No. Caelius tolerates me," Jason explained. "Careful, sharp rebars sticking out of concrete on your right." Pax skillfully pushed herself away, making sure the rope was safe too.

"That sounds like the base of any male friendship." She jested him, one hand on the line, and the second using her sensors to assess the surroundings. "We are four levels below now. How far does this chasm go?" The edges of the floors vanished together with the walls and corridors. There was only a pitch-black night around them.

"My readings say the same." He wondered, checking his arm computer. Their lights jumped around them frantically, trying to pierce through the veil of darkness until finally, Jason's lamp highlighted a stone wall. The space around them slowly enclosed, giving them a sense of space.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"I think we are in some sort of sinkhole?" Pax warned, stopping her line. Jason did the same.

"Either that, or there is a cave system under these hills. The bomb must have been placed somewhere down there, and the explosion travelled all the way up."

"Are you doing my job now?" She marvelled, trying to see with their light if there is a visible bottom. "Our lights are too weak for this, and those guys probably didn't expect this would go that far down." Pax was glad they could see the walls around them, but the lack of safe ground bothered her.

"I'll drop an emergency beacon and see how far it goes. If it's too deep, we will go back up. Your call. At least it will give us some clue."

"Do it," she agreed. Jason twisted the top of the device, and a chemical reaction within it flamed into a bright burst of yellow light. When he let it go, they could see how it lit up the walls of the cave, with all of its layers like the inside of an ancient tree made out of many layers of browns and reds of the ignimbrite crashing with paler grey andesite filled with crystalline spots. And then it stopped after no more than thirty metres below them, creating a blob of soft light. With that reassurance, they started to descend down again.

It was a relief when their feet finally touched the bottom of the shaft. The ground was a mix of sand and gravel that felt soft when walking.

The beacon provided much more light than their torches, allowing them to see how big the cave they were standing in was. Its dome was at least twenty metres above, opening to the south from their position. The drop from where they came in shone a faint light at the top of it, seemingly impossibly high to reach.

"What kind of pit of despair is this?" Jason cursed quietly. He took a few seconds to stretch and adjust his protective uniform. It was much heavier than he would like, with metal chest pieces, shoulders, and leg protectors. In his mind, he wasn't far off from some kind of space soldier looking like that. He balanced his weight on one leg, waiting.

"You have a soldier's stance, unlike most engineers I have seen," Pax noticed, trying to establish a communication channel with the security forces.

"Yeah, and? I'm a Psi class engineer; I had military training," he revealed, not moving an inch. Both hands on his waist. She quickly looked at him and then away. On Mars, there wasn't much time or a chance for her to read him. She only saw his face for a few minutes before they put the helmets on, and then it was just his dark eyes following her. The same when he and Caelius were working, and in the market or the tram. There was always something that prevented her from just looking at him. Now, in the soft emergency light, she could see his sharp jaw pronounced by the shadows, with a shade of a goatee, dark short hair moving with the cave breeze, and sharp eyebrows frowning at her from the side. A small diffraction to the light enveloped what she saw. Like a halo. Just for a second.

"I can't get a connection to the surface. Can you try?" Pax asked, trying to change the topic. Without a word, he walked towards her and accessed the computer on her hand, using his own to boost the signal.

"We have reached the bottom of the cave that connects to the collapsed section of the building. We will investigate. It seems the explosion came from here." They waited for a couple of minutes in silence, looking at each other concerned, but finally, through the static, there was a response.

"... hear you are OK. Very bad signal... cautious down there." Pax let the air she had been holding escape too loudly. The connection to the surface improved their spirits, and now they could focus on exploring the cave systems, which seemed to stretch deep underground. But that was only a trick of the shadows as the doomed opening quickly narrowed, showing signs of human work.

"It seems that this time, you took me to a cave," Jason said in a lighter tone, with a shadow of a joke.

"Wasn't my first choice," Pax argued. Her steps felt spongy and soft; there must be a source of moisture keeping the surface damp.

"I was thinking about the dance floor before you get too drunk tonight." A group of stalagmites and stalactites entrenched the wall, preventing her from exploring and searching the north part of the opening. The stone had an odd shine to it, as it was constantly moist. She couldn't hear Jason reply and turned around to check up on him. He stood on something that looked like a flat stone surface, even recognized a few shallow steps going down when she approached, but then Pax, with a chill, recognized a number of dirty shapes on the ground.

"More bodies," Jason warned quietly. There was a sense of terror in his voice as he looked at her with heavy eyes. But there was something incredibly strange about them. Explosion victims would have charcoaled bodies; these looked like they went through a pyroclastic flow. Pax couldn't find words to describe them. Nothing matched a normal explosion site she had experienced before.

Four bodies lay in an odd-shaped circle, with a fifth only two metres away, curled up in a foetal position. Their skin was grey as ash, cracked like old, weathered stone. One of the bodies in the circle was missing an arm, while the one on the side had visible lower leg bones.

"What are you doing?" he asked quietly when Pax kneeled next to one of the bodies, but she didn't answer. Instead, she tried to gently lift the corpse, but in a split second of surprise, it fell apart into dust. Pax let out a quiet cry of startled surprise. There was nothing left for her to study or even assess what happened. The victim was completely cremated in the explosion.

"That's impossible," she got up, confused, looking around, searching. Her mind started to think. Shining the light again on the stalagmites, Pax murmured like in a fever. "That's not moisture. That's melted stone and quartz." To Jason, it made no sense, and it pulled on some nerves within him. It's different to analyse an empty building than to find bodies in one.

"Do you remember what we talked about back on Tartarus? When we were trying to find the epicentre of the explosion?" Pax walked back to him with a spring in her steps.

Jason fluttered his eyes, trying to recall that conversation. "Something about creating a map based on samples of dust that had different pressure variance depending on the distance from the epicentre," he recalled in one breath.

"And what else?"

"Then I told you to look up." Jason shrugged, chewing the inside of his lip.

"Well, yes, but no. I told you about how the increased explosion pressure coming from the epicentre should have a significant effect on the microcrystallization structure, but it seems that in this case, it has a macro scale. Whoever detonated this bomb wanted something gone. Badly."

"But the data simulation we used earlier only shows this is about 80% from the epicentre based on the parameters." The computers seemed to have been working overtime, producing strange new algorithms and mapping the terrain using technology similar to sonar. The readings showed the cave had an end not far away from them.

Pax nodded and looked at the end of the flat surface toward something that looked like a passageway.

"What about—?" Jason pointed with his chin at the bodies.

"You've seen what happened when I tried to touch it. There is nothing we can do that won't have a negative effect on the integrity of the bodies."

With unease, they left the bodies and moved deeper into the cave. They walked on a fairly flat, man-made surface that looked as if it was made out of the surrounding stone. Blackened in some places, gathering dust and dirt in others. The wall before them seemed an impassable barrier. Upon closer inspection, Pax noticed deep carvings in its surface, creating crossing lines connecting to deeper ridges.

"It's a map of the solar system." Jason grabbed her hand and pulled her back a few metres for her to see.

He was right—the carvings were a detailed map of all the stellar bodies and their moons together with their paths around the sun. If it weren't for the circumstances, it would seem quite beautiful to behold.

"There must be something behind this wall," she exclaimed after a moment of awe. "The sensors on my computer are going crazy." But there wasn't an obvious way of opening any type of passage that she could find.

"Try pushing the discs of the planets you can reach. Maybe one of them is a lock mechanism," Jason smirked at her.

"Are you serious?" she pointed out.

"Do you have any better ideas?" No, she didn't. With tired hesitation, Pax approached the wall again, her fingers scraping the ridges of the planetary paths. Finally, she stood in front of Venus. There was no indication that it would move when pushed. Still, she made the attempt and pressed it with effort—nothing.

"Come on, we have another eight to go," Jason jeered, attempting to press the Neptune disc with no success.

Unimpressed, she wondered, "Why would anyone create such an intricate sculpture to use it as a door mechanism? This should be simple."

"Try Earth."

"That's stupid," she echoed back.

"Just try it." Pax ignored him and instead pressed Pluto, which was closer to the ground, only to let out an inarticulate grunt of dissatisfaction when nothing happened. Jason considered her for a second with unknown curiosity and decided to do what he suggested instead of saying anything.

"I told you that's stupid," Pax hummed with contempt seeing his attempt, but then her smile dropped when the Earth disc actually clicked and collapsed deeper, stopping. Under the dust, a pattern of light shot through the Earth's orbit. Something rumbled and moved behind the stone slowly. A mechanism slowly creaked, and the wall in front of them moved up, opening a gap, letting out a thick column of dust and air. Their computers started beeping in dramatic panic, revealing a high concentration of toxic gases in the passage they just opened. Without a second of delay, both put on breathing masks. Pax insisted on checking if Jason's fit accordingly.

"Thanks," his voice was muffled.

"It wasn't stupid in the end," she added after making sure his equipment was secured in place. "Let's see what you found there."