After a couple minutes Abek slowly pushed the younger man off of him. Kel was still shaking, but allowed Goa to pull him to his feet. He hugged the veteran gregga tightly then whispered his thanks.

“It’s all right,” Goa replied softly. “That sort of thing happens to all of us at least once or twice. Now you have a story to tell.”

“I do,” Kel replied and reached up to pull Abek’s age-lined and stubbly gray face down to kiss it all over.

Goa let that go on for a while, but they did need to get back to work. The rest would have to wait until they had actually found something useful.

He released the kid from their embrace and moved over to take a look at the collapse.

It was careful going, as neither he nor Kel wanted to end up at the bottom of the dark hole that had been created. To explore the collapse called for ropes and careful harnessing to make sure even if the edges gave way they would be able to pull each other back up.

There was definitely something interesting below, something that glittered, reflected, in the beams of light they shined down into the darkness.

It was hard to tell from above what it might be, but there was a promise of the tech they were looking for. And it meant they weren’t going to have to waste their meager supply of explosives on the rusted metal door.

“Looks like you might have found something after all,”Goa noted grinning. Kel grinned back.

They unspooled their rope and climbed down into the darker areas into the depths of the structure. Where the landed the floor was wet with water and mud, and smelled of mold and other damp things. Water dripped from overhead offering a steady faint plot every second.

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The promise of tech or tril turned into yet another of the more standard empty chases that often greggas found themselves on in the south. Scrap and little else.

“Do you really think we’ll find anything down here?” Kel wondered, playing his light into the damp darkness. The light was filtered through numerous cracked translucent computer screens that surrounded them.

“It’s always easier to find something that’s not out in the open,”Goa noted, sending his beam of light playing around. It looked like some kind of control or information center. Those screens would have once been used for video access, viewing of remote places, or offering all sorts of data presentations.

Without the trilium to power them, however, they weren’t much use in this day and age.

The two checked the stands they were on, the cabinets in the chamber, found mostly oxidized circuit boards and moldy controls. Nothing appeared to be useful or in working condition. And there was no apparent tril, as all the units were wired to the walls.

Kel looked at him, disappointed. Abek shrugged. That’s how it was, optimism turned to disappointment often on Makan.

But there was much to search, as an open door lead to a hallway lined with other doors

They wandered around the dark and dank basement, checking out the corridors and chambers, finding most of what had been left had been ruined by centuries of water or mold. And in much of the rooms, found pools of odorous liquid as deep as their ankles.

And there was more.

There were signs of activity, signs that furniture and other objects had been moved around, moved. Marks on the floor showed the original placements where cabinets and tables once stood.

“Was it the machines that did that?” Kel asked?

Goashook his head.

“Naw,” he replied. “I don’t think machines are responsible for this. “There’s too little here. And besides, they wouldn’t have left that door upstairs to rust shut. It must have been other greggas.”

“There are other greggas here?”

“Streck no! buddy,” Abek grinned. “This crap looks like it might have been moved years ago, decades. There’s no on around here. There can’t be.”

But they were both about to learn he was very wrong.

Kel found the evidence nearby, as they discovered an exit that lead out of the underground complex.

“Look there.” The kid pointed a beam of light across the chamber.

Goa looked, breathed out, and nodded. Yeah, he was wrong. It was not the biggest of surprises, but it would change how they were going to have to operate here. It had to.