The time on Rory’s commo told him it took nearly an hour to climb down the lowest doorway of the dark shaft. He had had to stop at least a dozen times to rest his arms and legs or wind the lamp. By the time he was ready to use the bar on the doorway, Rory was covered in sweat and taking in panting breaths. Beyond that, his body was in a great deal of pain from the schoolmate and enforcer beatings, as well as his old burns. But he was used to it by now. He’d been living in constant pain for eight years and scavenging in it for more than six.

Finally able to move with sufficient strength, Rory began jamming the flat end of the bar between the maglift doors. He quickly had to stop though as his eyes stung from the sweat falling into them. Putting the bar down for a moment, he took his shirt off and wrapped it around his head, with a quick knot in the back keeping both his hair and, hopefully, sweat from his face. Rory only ever did that when nobody was around to see his skin and its ugly scars. He even tried to shower without the other boys around on the two days per week he was allowed to use the school facilities. . He failed.

Refocusing, Rory wiped his face with his arm and then he shoved the bar into the slit between the sliding doors. Grunting with the effort and discomfort, he pulled hard and managed to pry open the double doors of the shaft entrance just enough for his hands to get in there. Then, using his legs against the wall for leverage, he pulled at the door again. More echoing screeching followed but he did was able to slide the door aside so he could slip in shoulder-first.

Squeezed through, he collapsed onto the flexcrete floor. Catching his breath again, he reached back and reached back through and grabbed the lantern. Winding it to get it to its brightest, Rory looked around the room he figured hadn’t had a visitor in decades. Scanning his surroundings, he found himself in a short debris-filled hallway that stopped at the largest door he had ever seen. It was a massive round M-steel monstrosity with a spoked wheel three feet across at his chest height in its middle.

Rory’s smile nearly split his face in half as he spoke to himself. “The only reason to use a door like this is because something insanely valuable is inside.”

He ran right up to the wheel and shined the newly-cranked lantern at it. Just above the wheel were the engraved words, “Emergency Release,” while behind the wheel there were two engraved curved arrows pointing in opposite directions. The top one was pointing to the right and said “TO CLOSE” and the bottom to the left and said, “TO OPEN.”

“Well, that’s straight forward,” Rory mumbled as he gripped two spokes on the outside of the wheel.

He tried to turn the wheel. It didn’t budge. Grumbling, Rory tried again, ignoring the pain for hope of something that could save him and his mum. Using every ounce of strength he had, Rory pushed. He could see his pale skin turning red in the light but the bloody door still wouldn’t move even an inch.

Panting, he stepped back, put his hands on his hips and glared at the wheel. Then he looked around for ideas or inspiration. Scanning the hallway outside the big door, Rory saw nothing except heavily cracked walls, floors and ceiling. Broken pieces of flexcrete were littering the floor but beyond that, there was nothing. He started pacing looking at the wheel.

Stolen novel; please report.

“Think Rory,” he said himself. “You need more leverage.”

He looked around again and stared at a piece of flexcrete twice the size of his head. He blinked at it and then back at the door.

That’s it!

Running up to the door, he took the prying bar from his bag and put it between a few of the spokes but sticking out on the left. Then he went over and picked up that piece of flexcrete with a grunt and walked it over. Lifting it over his head, he slammed it down on the end of the pry bar that was sticking out. There was a loud clanging sound and the piece of debris crashed to the floor, deflecting off his thigh and missing his foot by inches. He jumped back out of instinct more than anything else but still fell over in pain.

“Well that was fucking stupid, Rory,” he berated himself while rubbing his thigh. Grumbling, he shook his head. “Ok. Let’s try that again, but stand to the side.”

Returning to his feet, he did as he told himself and brought the heavy irregular flexcrete down on the end of the rod. He managed to not hurt himself that time and repeated the process until the rod started to bend on the end he was hitting. But that was okay, because it also moved the wheel.

Yes!

Smashing a few more times until the rod was too bent to work, Rory went up to the wheel to confirm his hopes. It had definitely turned. The rod was parallel to the floor when he started and now it was at an easily visible angle more downward.

“Well, that’s something else, isn’t it?”

Rory jumped at the voice and turned to the lift shaft. “Bloody hell, Henry! You almost killed me with surprise.”

“Settle down, boy,” said the old man as he was climbing out of the shaft. He tossed something aside that clattered on the floor and walked forward. “Good job getting that loose. Now let’s see if we can turn it together.”

Rory didn’t see what he tossed but also didn't care. The priority was the door and, most importantly, what was behind it.

He put the bent rod back into the bag figuring he might be able to unbend it at some point, and stepped to the right. They both stood at opposite sides of the wheel and after a count of three, they started pushing with everything they had, Rory up on the right and Hendy down on the left.

Slowly the wheel turned little by little until something inside must have clicked free because all pressure suddenly released and Rory tumbled over, bumped into Henry, and fell to the floor with a pain-filled moan.

Once he gathered himself, Rory realized Henry had not budged even an inch when he ran into him, nor fallen from the sudden release. What Henry did do was cackle loudly and start turning the wheel with incredible speed.

Rory looked on, confused. “Henry?”

But before the old man could answer, a bunch of clicking and clacking noises came from the door, and then everything was silent. That was until Henry walked away from the wheel to the torso-sized handle and started pulling. Whatever allowed for the massive thing to swing was clearly still in excellent condition because Henry looked like he was barely straining himself while pulling a M-steel door ten feet in diameter. Rory got up and scrambled back out of the way of the swinging block of metal. Henry stopped pulling when it was far enough to enter and walked to the other side.

Rory followed, examining the edge of the door as he passed. Shockingly, he found it was at least two feet thick with six-inch round holes with rods inside that he figured acted as the locking mechanisms.

Rory turned towards the large round M-steel hole and stepped through.