An hour of thankfully eventless tunnel travel later, Henry came to a stop. Nearly half an hour ago, the tunnel changed from dirt to M-steel. Rory noticed evidence of numerous blockages and even doorways that Henry must have spent months, maybe even years, getting through. Rory had done the same for blockages but usually tried to find ways to bypass stuck doors. He just couldn’t afford to spend that much time not earning money.

“We go down now, boy,” Henry said as he pointed at a circular hole in the cracked and dented M-steel floor.

Rory stepped up into the hole. Henry’s light exposed a M-steel ladder which Rory saw was missing a number of rungs. “Can you even make it down there?” he asked Henry, concerned the old man would fall if he made the attempt. “Why don’t you let me go first?”

Henry raised his hand to object but Rory cut him off. “Old man, I’m not going to rip you off. You know me better than that. Let me go first. You’re too much of an old curmudgeon to be climbing up and down.”

Henry glared at him and hmphed. “I’ll give you old. Fine! You go, look around and come right back if it isn’t safe. You got a way to protect yourself?” Rory never told him that he was a Soul Warrior. He didn’t want Henry to have any false expectations.

Rory said only, “Uh-huh,” and sat down on his ass with his legs dangling in the hole. With Henry’s lamp attached to his shirt collar by a hook, he took a deep breath in case the air was bad (which happened regularly in the tunnels), put his feet on the rungs farther down, and leaned over until his hands were both on a rung. Slowly, he made his painful way down, checking each ladder rung before putting his full weight on them. He occasionally had to skip one or even two at once that were either loose or missing. After a few minutes of that, he was close enough to see the bottom. It was a floor made of a stone-like material Rory found occasionally in the tunnels but knew held no resale value. It was called flexcrete and was made of liquid stone and then hardened. It was often used for the foundations of buildings, as well as floors, and walkways since it was cheaper than M-steel yet strong enough to hold up to the stresses of weight and wear.

Anyway, Rory found himself in a room with a flexcrete floor that was heavily damaged. It was riddled with broken chunks and Rory saw cracks run as far as his light could show. Noticing it was getting a little dim, Rory wound the arm of the light and the room got progressively brighter. He kept winding it until he could see the walls of the eight-foot by eight-foot square room. The walls were a deep red, almost black, and completely matte. Each had a circle about three inches in diameter that was not solid but punctured with tiny holes in regular rows.

Vents maybe?

Rory hadn’t seen walls or rooms like this before. He’d have to ask Henry if the material was worth anything. Probably not if there was this much of it, but one never knew. The room was otherwise completely empty.

Why would there be just an empty room?

“Still alive, boy?” echoed down in Henry’s creaky voice.

“Nope,” Rory called back up. “I died. But before I did I found an empty room with weird walls. The air is ok. You can come down.”

“You better catch me if I fall!” he hollered back.

“I’ll try not to laugh so hard I miss.”

Rory grinned as he heard the grumbling swears coming from above him. Slowly, Henry made his way down, thankfully without needing Rory to catch his ancient body. When the old man steadied himself, he looked around and smiled widely. “This is it. If there’s anything to find worth money it’ll be down here. Now go open that door the rest of the way.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Nodding, Rory walked over to the partially opened and crumpled door, pulling a M-steel rod with one side that had been squashed flat out of the pack. He then jammed the flat end into the opening and pushed with all his limited strength. A few grunts, squeals of metal on metal, and a loud crash later, the door slid aside enough to walk through.

Panting and wincing from the pain in his ribs and, of course his burns, Rory returned the bar to his bag as Henry exited the room without a word. He found they were at the end of a hallway so long the other end wasn’t visible from there. Following closely behind Henry, Rory listed as the old man mumbled to himself the entire time they walked down the hallway. As they moved, he noticed the hallway was rife identical doors that appeared every six or so feet. Some of them were partially broken open and Rory looked in as they passed, only to see all of them were rooms identical to the one they had entered in from above.

Still not speaking to Rory, Henry walked forward as if possessed.

“You know something about down here?” Rory asked him.

Henry shook his head. “Where else would we go?”

That’s fair I guess. It’s the hallway or nothing.

“Is there anything worth anything so far? The walls?” Rory asked, his priority reasserting itself.

“Nah. If there’s anything of real value, it’s up ahead.”

Another minute or more of walking and a lamp-winding later, the pair found themselves at double doors, twice as wide as the ones from before. Thankfully they were cracked open just enough to squeeze through because, upon inspection, Rory found them twice as thick as the others too.

What in the bloody hell was in those rooms?

Rory noticed that Henry didn’t have his knife out, which was unusual. But then again, this was a secure building of some sort and no simple highrise or office. He started thinking about the things that could be here that he could sell. What if it was a medical or a military facility? Those would definitely have things worth fifty pounds. Getting excited about the prospect, he thought it might even be a bank.

Maybe this is a vault?

Rory hurriedly pushed through the double doors after Henry and found it led to an intersection of four matching double doors and a corridor that ended at a maglift. Interestingly, each of the double doors had an animal graphic of some sort carved into the M-steel. Running his hand along the carving, Rory asked, “Why would anyone do that to the M-steel when a projection would be more effective?”

Henry’s only response was a shrug.

Right. How would he know?

The images were of a four-legged mammal of some sort, a snake, a bird, and a fish. Only the snake door was cracked open by an inch or so. The others were still sealed tight. He could swear he saw a little light from the crack and could smell something like wet dirt or mold through the snake door. But that didn’t matter now.

“Where the hell are we?” Rory whispered.

Henry’s response was, “A science facility of some sort.” Pointing at the mag lift shaft, he said, “Here. We should head down that way. It probably leads to deeper in, which is likelier to have what we’re looking for. There won’t be anything new inside any of these doors, just more of the same.”

So not a bank then. Still. A science facility has potential.

Figuring the old man was right, Rory followed Henry to the shaft. As it was the heart of most of his lessons, Rory knew that the old man never went anywhere he felt there was a risk he thought was too high. Henry was super neurotic about it so Rory wasn’t too worried when he looked down a shaft that went into blackness way too far to see. Sure this place was creepy as fuck, but if Henry wasn’t worried neither was he.

Hell, Rory had spent most of the last five years digging around this city graveyard desperately trying to find places exactly like this. He wasn’t scared, he was hopeful. And, more than anything else, he was out of time.

“More ladders,” mumbled Rory. “Want me to go first again? You’ll have to tell me how far to go though.”

Henry rubbed his chin and nodded. “Yes, fine. The question is where do we stop?” Henry started mumbling to himself and Rory waited while he decided.

Eventually Rory proposed, “How about we go all the way down and work our way up? If the deeper in means the better chance of finding something, let’s start at the bottom.”

“Fine fine,” Henry mumbled with a nod. “Then empty your bag of everything except a prying bar so you can store anything good. And don’t forget to wind the lamp. Oh. If you find something that looks like a white ball, bring that too.”

Rory looked at him. “What? A white ball? What for?”

“Why not? I’ve always wanted a white ball.”

Rolling his eyes at the loony old man, he just nodded and said in an exasperated tone, “Alright. A white ball. Got it.”

“Good. Now shoo.” And Henry waved his hands, sending Rory on his way down the shaft into darkness.