The door at the top of the shaft opened into another corridor. Loach had given the voice command for the lights to turn on, but none of them had done so and Randall had to grope his way in impenetrable darkness.

"I think this is the basement," said Loach from somewhere up ahead. "No windows that I can find, and there's that smell. A kind of basement smell. You know what I mean?"

Randall had never been in a basement in his life so he had to take the other man's word for it. There was a smell, though. An organic smell of compost and decay that he remembered from his occasional visits to botanical gardens. The huge King William glasshouse of Kew Gardens, in particular, that he'd helped finance for tax reasons. He'd been there for the opening ceremony with the King himself and a bunch of other dignitaries. The place had only just been planted up but it had already taken on the close, humid aroma of an enclosed space containing plants, shut off from the outside world. From it, Randall could tell that they were still trapped. Still faced with suffocation when the air ran out.

The climb had exhausted him and given him a headache. It infuriated him! In his youth he'd taken care of his body. Exercised and ate healthily. He'd been strong and fit, and had remained so until just a few months ago when his disease had finally began to become noticeable. Being frail and weak was something he was still not used to and he hated it!

"There's a flight of stairs," said Loach. "On the other side of those doors. It's blocked. Blocked with earth."

"Earth?" said Randall. His imagination conjured up images of a landslide, perhaps caused by the same earthquake that had cracked the computer room downstairs. He imagined the facility buried under tons of earth and rubble. The above ground part of the building in ruins. The same earthquake, if that's what it had been, might have damaged other buildings. The rescue workers might be giving priority to schools and hospitals. If they thought that Randall and the others were still sleeping safely in their hypersleep cubicles they might well leave them until last. By the time they got around to the hibernaculum, the four survivors would probably have suffocated.

Except, no. His own people would want to get him out. He'd been very careful to make sure that he was worth more to his people alive than dead, and he thought it likely that some of the others would have done the same thing. There would be people digging down to find them. Either his own people or someone else's. All they had to do was wait.

Loach didn't seem to be the kind to wait for rescue, though. Randall could hear him just up ahead, searching through rooms, looking for something. Something to dig with, probably. Idiot, thought Randall. He could cause a new landslide. Maybe bring the ceiling down on their heads. He looked up, even though he couldn't see the ceiling in the darkness, and imagined tons of earth and rock held up by only a few centimetres of plasteel. He found himself holding his breath and freezing in place, as if even the tiniest movement might bring it all down on top of him...

There was a light shining from behind him. He turned and saw Jane pulling herself up out of the elevator shaft, a bunch of glowsticks in her mouth, one of which was glowing with a greenish light. Randall went back to help her up. Her skin was clammy and ice cold, which reminded Randall how cold he himself still was. At least he was mostly dry, though, which helped, but it was leaving him feeling sticky and uncomfortable. At that moment, he would have given half his fortune for a shower.

"Found these in a drawer," she said as she spat out the glowsticks, steadied herself and stood. She picked them up again and handed one to Randall. "Better use just one at a time. We don't know how long they're going to have to last us."

"Yeah," agreed Randall. The young woman was turning to help Emily out of the elevator shaft and Randall left them to it, going to where Loach was still trying to dig his way out. Jane had kept the glowing glowstick for herself, so Randall cracked another so that the two men could see what they were doing.

Loach had found a kitchen knife and was using it to attack the mass of earth that was blocking the stairs. As Randall came close and the glowstick lit up the scene, though, the other man paused and stared at the blockage in amazement. There were tree roots in it. Thick tree roots, dozens of years old, and the soil around and between them had a solid, compacted look as if it had been there for years. "That's no recent landslide," he said.

"No," agreed Randall.

"This place has been abandoned for a long time. Years at least."

"Yeah."

"We are not going to be able to dig through that."

Randall made no reply. There didn't seem to be any point.

"My God!" said one of the women behind them. Randall turned and saw that Lucy was holding her glowstick up over her head. She seemed to have given up any attempt to hide her body and Randall took a moment to appreciate the sight before looking up at what she'd found.

The ceiling was sagging under the weight pressing down on it, and several cracks had opened in it from which roots dangled. Water was dripping from some of them to puddle on the ground, from where it ran away to a side room. Jane and Emily backed warily away from it, as if it might collapse at any time.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"What happened?" asked Jane, more to herself than anyone else. "What in the name of God happened?"

"I'm guessing that means there's no-one coming for us," said Loach, coming back to rejoin the others. "This place was abandoned and forgotten. They forgot we were down here. Over the years, the place was buried. The upper storeys, however many there were, collapsed. They're not there any more. Nothing but trees growing wild."

"Trees don't grow wild any more," said Emily, though. "Not in this country, anyway."

"We don't actually know what country we're in," pointed out Loach.

"Somewhere temperate," replied the eco terrorist. "Those are english oak roots, so we're in Europe or North America. Possible northern Africa or western Asia."

"Well, that narrows it down," said Loach with a thin smile. Emily ignored him.

"How far down do English oak roots reach?" asked Jane. Randall looked at her. Maybe the girl had a brain after all.

"Their anchoring roots can go very deep," replied Emily, "but most of their roots, the ones that drink water, tend not to go deeper than thirty to fifty centimetres." She reached up, grabbed a root and pulled it free. A small shower of damp soil came with it and the others staggered back in sudden alarm.

"These are fibrous roots," said the ecologist. "That's good. We're not that far down. No more than a metre, max. In this spot, anyway. It's possible that the surface undulates above us."

"So we dig here," said Loach, staring up at the ceiling."

"I would say that's our best plan."

"So we're going to need something to attack the ceiling with. And something to stand on."

"So let's go see what we can find," said Emily.

Loach nodded, and the four of them went off to explore the rest of the small complex.

☆☆☆

The kitchen turned out to be their best source of tools, and half an hour later they returned to the corridor armed with a variety of knives and cooking utensils. Some time recently, moisture had found its way into the buried complex through the seals lining every door and the metal tools had begun to corrode, but there was still plenty of good, solid metal under the powdery grey surface. Randall thought they would be strong enough to dig with.

Randall helped Loach to carry a table from an office they'd found in one of the side rooms. Loach climbed up onto it and stood with his head and shoulders hunched over under the crumbling plasteel. He reached up to take hold of the edge of the crack. "You may want to stand back," he warned the others, "in case I bring the whole lot down on our heads."

The others drew back towards the blocked stairs. Loach then took a firmer hold on the edge of the crack. He tensed himself up, then pulled on it with all his weight.

The ceiling took his weight without moving. Loach pulled again, lifting his feet from the table and hanging from the ceiling. "Take the table away," he told the others.

Randall came forward and pulled it away. Loach then pulled himself higher and let his body drop, increasing the pull on the ceiling where he was still holding on by his fingertips. He did the same thing again, then again, and finally the ceiling began to give.

"Careful!" warned Jane, her hands going to her mouth. Loach ignored her and gave the ceiling another tug. There was a loud crack and the two inch thickness of plasteel bent suddenly downward. Loach let go, dropped to the floor and ran to where the others were sheltering in a doorway, but nothing else happened. A flap of plasteel half a metre wide hung downwards from the ceiling, exposing bare brown earth held in place by a tangled network of roots. An earthworm fell to the floor where it lay, moving slowly as if in puzzlement.

"You think that's a big enough hole to climb up through?" asked Loach, pushing the table back and climbing back onto it.

The others glanced at each other, comparing stomachs and rib cages with the hole in the ceiling. "I think so," said Emily.

"Okay. Someone hand me up my knife, please."

"Randall handed the bread knife up to him, and the gangster began cutting at the thickest tree root growing through the soil.

☆☆☆

Loach and Randall took turns to dig. Randall could only work for a few minutes before exhaustion overcame him and he had to stop, perspiring and his heart hammering, but it gave the younger man a chance to rest before going at it again with energy and enthusiasm.

The two women, meanwhile, went off to do some more exploring. Randall guessed that Jane was mainly looking for something to wear, and indeed he caught a glimpse of her trying to wrap a tablecloth around her shoulders, but it fell to pieces in her hand and she let it drop to to the ground in dismay.

They snapped more glowsticks to replace the ones they'd used until they were all used up, and then the men continued to dig by feel. There were chunks of broken masonry mixed up in the soil which they dropped down into the corridor. At one point, Loach found a piece of plasteel too large to move and he dug around it. Eventually, though, the others heard him shouting that there was daylight shining in through a hole above him and they gathered under him to see.

By the feel of it under their bare feet, it was mainly half rotted leaf mould dropping down from the hole in the ceiling now, and when they looked up they saw what Loach had seen. A shaft of brilliant white light, getting wider as the crime boss continued to widen the hole. "Get a chair," he shouted down. "Put it on the table. I think I can climb out."

Randall went back to the kitchen and came back with a plastic chair. When the shaft of light lit it, he saw that it was discoloured and brittle looking, with thousands of tiny cracks running through it. "I'm not sure this'll take your weight," he said doubtfully as he placed it on the table.

"We'll see," Loach replied. He put one foot on it to test its strength and stability, then stepped up onto it. He reached up and scrambled around the edges of the hole, looking for places strong enough to take his weight. Then, with a grunt of effort, he pulled himself up.

Randall was pretty sure that he lacked the strength to repeat the feat in his present condition. He wouldn't be able to get up there unless the stronger man pulled him up. He'll go off and leave us, he thought with rising fear. He's a criminal. He doesn't care about anyone but himself. Why should he go to the effort of helping us? Maybe he could persuade Emily to help him up. She looked as though she might be able to, despite being ill herself...

"Randall!" called back Loach from above. "You're next. Climb up and I'll help you out."

Randall nodded gratefully and, with help from the two women, be climbed up onto the table.