“And you didn't think that was suspicious?” said Riley.
“At first I did. I was about to report it to my C.O, but the risk of him finding out what I'd been doing in the first place was too high so I left it. We began talking and soon we were exchanging our findings, filling in the gaps for each other. Eventually we realised the size of what we were on to so we switched to hand-written letters.”
“Where was Saska at the time?” I asked, wanting to see if the stories added up.
“At first she admitted she was in Moscow. Then she told me she was on her way to check out this bunker based on a lead she'd gotten from an ex-pat of England. She said she was in contact with someone who had even more information to share with us about Project 16 and that she'd been advised to get to the bunker and secure it. I was to follow the moment I could, going AWOL in a taxi as soon as shore leave had been granted. I drove across Europe and hired a boat to bring me here.”
"So you just believed it all? Just like that? You took a hell of a risk," said Riley.
"It was too risky not to. Believe me, I spent a lot of time weighing it up in my head. In the end I felt that the risk of ignoring the evidence was too great. Plus I had the evidence of the virus itself to confirm what I was hearing."
“So you've been down here all that time?” I said.
“Yeah. We're starting to go a little crazy but Saska thinks it'll only be a matter of days before we can create a working cure. It's just a shame we weren't able to get the original cure. It would have saved us some time. More people could've been saved."
“Why aren't we affected?” asked Riley.
“You might be but in a different way. Some people show little or no signs of reaction to the disease. Others deteriorate much quicker. We've been lucky so far and it doesn't seem to be as potent here. That might be because of the lack of people to infect and spread it."
My eyelids were getting heavier and heavier. I wanted to sleep but I also wanted to know the rest. I sat upright and forward, clasping my hands in front of me just to keep me moving.
“You said the cure was in the vault. Why can't you get in? Were you not given a code?”
“It's not coded - it's a DNA scanner. I'm trying to bypass it but I’ve been working on it for weeks now and I'm no closer. That's why Saska is on with plan B - to try and create her own cure in case we can't get in.”
“Who's DNA?” asked Riley. Alex shrugged.
“We don't know. One of the bunker's Science Staff I guess but look around - do you see any?”
“You said the US wanted it for themselves?”
“Yeah - to control it's distribution. They think that if they can still get their hands on it they can open negotiations with the NSU in return for gas and oil deals. Russia will have to give in to their demands in order to have a chance of surviving.”
My head lolled forward and I jerked awake again. Alex saw me and laughed. “I'll show you the bunks and you can grab some sleep. We can continue this later.”
We stood and followed him down the hallway, passing storage rooms piled high with dehydrated foods and bottled water in plastic crates. We passed through some more doors and I stopped paying attention until we were outside bunk room 3.
“Aunt Riley, you take this one. Miller, take number 2. I think they're pretty well stocked so help yourself to a shower. The facilities are still active and the water comes from a giant reservoir built into the place. We can eat once you've slept.”
“Thanks Alex,” said Riley, giving her nephew another hug.
“No, thank you. I'm glad to see a familiar face. We were feeling forgotten down here.”
Riley smiled and went into her room whilst I went into mine. It was a four-man bunk room with steel frames that held thick sprung mattresses. There was a table in the corner, a wash basin and mirror, and through a door on the right was a toilet and shower room. It was all decked out in green and white paint with military stencils here and there. Right then it could have been bright pink - all I wanted to do was sleep and it didn't matter where.
I threw my pack down onto the floor and stripped off, going straight for the shower to try and wash off two weeks worth of dirt and sweat. I didn't care where I was or who was trying to kill us. I just wanted to feel clean - just for five minutes before it all started again.
I washed but didn't hang around - I could have slept under the hot water if I wanted. Instead I dried on a towel that was hanging there and found a thin green cotton dressing gown on the back of the door. I put it on, went to one of the bottom bunks and threw my sleeping bag on top of it before lying out flat on the bed. The springs creaked as I settled and I felt like I'd tripped and landed in bliss. My head was swimming with fatigue - so much so that I didn't even notice Riley creep into my room and lie down next to me.
“You showered?” she whispered.
“Yeah,” I mumbled.
“Fantastic, wasn't it?”
“Yeah.”
“Move over - I can't sleep in there.”
“Why?”
“There's some kind of weird smell in there, something died in there I think.” My head was filled with her scent - soap and damp hair and when her breath touched my face it was hot and minty. I pulled open my sleeping bag and she wriggled inside, locking her body with mine and sliding her warm hand under my gown until her fingertips rested on my stomach.
“You did good today,” I said, still groggy. “But this doesn't fit with your bad-ass reputation.”
“What doesn't?”
“This - all delicate and smelling nice. Shouldn't you be eating iron and shitting bullets or something?”
“There's always two sides to a person, Miller. You don't always get to see both.”
“I think a person has to be very special for them to see this side of Claudia Riley.”
“You're fucking right there,” she said. I found her moist lips without opening my eyes and we kissed. “But we're still not going to fuck.”
“I'm too tired anyway.”
We led there in silence and I listened to her breathing softly, her chest rising and falling under my palm and for a moment I wanted the world to stop dead. I wanted this to go on, to never end - just a perfect slice of beauty that smothered my senses and that I knew would eventually come to an end. We'd leave, we'd grow old, we'd get ill and death would come - the desecrater of everything pure and perfect. We'd stop existing and this moment would be forgotten forever, buried in a tomb hewn from arguments and shame, from age and sorrow.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
“Nothing much,” I replied. “You have a scar.”
“What, this one?” she said, pointing to the small circle of tissue to the right of her belly button. “Or the other one?” I hadn't noticed the inch-long line running vertical below her breast.
“Either or,” I said.
“This is a ricochet from... Iraq I think. I can't remember.”
“How can you not remember?” I said.
“I remember getting shot - just not where. It was in a training exercise - a live fire one. It came off a bulkhead in some mock battleship room they'd made up in the camp. Fucking hurt though.”
“And the other one?”
“I've had that since I was a girl. It's from when I fell off my push bike. It was an ugly pink thing and I rode it into a ditch by mistake.” Her fingers traced the curve of my chest, searching but finding nothing. “I showed you mine - where's yours?”
“I don't have any more, the dog bite is the only one,” I said. “I try not to get shot or fall off push bikes.”
“I'm the same but sometimes these things just fucking happen to me.”
The desire to sleep was quickly replacing the desire for other things and my eyes began to close again. I told her as much and she giggled.
“I'm not being cold with you - you know that, don't you?” she said.
“I do.”
“It's just-”
“I prefer it this way,” I s
aid with total honesty. “We're not whores for each other. If we want it, we'll both be ready at the right time.”
“You see,” she said, sitting up and looking at me. “That's why I fucking love you - you get me! Nobody ever gets me. They think I'm some fucking fridge or something.”
“I get you, Riley. I think that maybe you even get me sometimes.”
“Sometimes. Other times, like back at the bunker, I just don't. But I promise you - the moment this is all over and we're back at you're house-”
“Our house.”
“Okay, our house - the moment we're back there you WILL get me. All of me.”
“Both sides?”
“Every fucking side, Miller, in every room of that big ole' house of yours.”
We slept until my watch had gone round the numbers and maybe we'd have gone on sleeping if Alex hadn't knocked on the door. But he did and he came in and saw us led there and smiled.
“Sorry,” he said. “But breakfast is ready. Or should I say, supper.”
“What time is it?” mumbled Riley from under the bag. Her hair was stuck up in all directions and she had one eye closed against the hallway light.
“Twenty-hundred.”
“Wow - we sure slept in!” she said.
“I'll let you guys... Well, you know." He closed the door behind him, grinning.
“Smooth,” she said, rolling out of bed. “Real smooth. I'll meet you out there.”
When she was gone I tried to work some life back into my limbs but they felt like they always did after a long nap - like they weren't even there. I sat on the edge of the bed for a while just breathing in her scent that clung to my skin like it was my own. I read somewhere that the sense of smell was the strongest memory recall tool the human body had. I couldn't argue with that one.
I got dressed again and sorted out my hair - staring in the mirror at a face I barely recognised. There were razors in individual plastic wrappers and I soaped up, taking off the layer of thick growth that had accumulated over the last two weeks. It took some doing but by the time I was finished I felt a little more human - even if I was bleeding a little.
When I went out into the hallway I could hear voices to my right. I followed them to a canteen made up of four large tables pushed together to make one big one. Along the walls were work surfaces and in brackets were microwave ovens, a sink and a hot water boiler. There was a staff rota on a cork board and a couple of take-away menus pinned under it. The overhead lighting was stark and cold.
“Have a seat, Miller,” said Saska who was laying out plates and cutlery. “I hope you're hungry.”
“How are you?” I asked. She smiled but there was still emotion hidden underneath it.
“The journal helped. You're right - it needs to go home. His wife will need it.”
Riley came in behind me, touched my backside as she passed and sat down at the table with a wry grin. Her hair was stuffed under her woolly hat and she'd rolled up her jumper sleeves in order to reach across the table to get the toast. I went and sat down and Alex came in with a pot of coffee and filled my cup.
“You never told me how you came to be involved in all this,” said Alex, sitting across from me. He passed me a second toast rack and a plate of that strange thing Americans called bacon. I wondered if they'd ever seen a pig before.
“I live here. Me and my Father came here when I was young. I guess I'm the only Englishman left in the country who didn't run after The Panic. He raised me - I never knew my mother - and we did work for the States.”
“What kind of work?” he asked.
“Don't worry - we trained soldiers in survival techniques and navigation. Advanced stuff that could be better taught here than back home. Dad knew it all and he passed it on to me. We have a house near here.”
“I'd been told about him,” added Riley. “So when your Mom asked me to find you, I thought it'd be best to have a native on board. Colonel Corban recommended him personally.”
“The same Corban?” he asked.
“Yeah, he knew my Father too,” I said. “But it looks like I underestimated him.”
“So he sent you with Riley to find me?”
I went on to explain the rest, munching hot toast with butter and bacon until I was full enough to burst. There were reconstituted eggs on a plate and Riley had managed to eat her way through most of them. Alex and Saska ate little but drank a third pot of coffee whilst I told them our story.
“Poor Piotr,” said Saska when I'd explained how he'd saved my life. “That was him - that was his way. Always putting others first.”
When I'd finished, Alex resumed his own account and filled in most of the gaps we'd had from our sleepy conversation earlier that day. By now my conception of time was a blur, one made all the more hazy given that we were deep underground with no sunlight or stars to govern our days.
“We've suspected all along that the vault and the cure were put down here in haste,” said Alex.
“What makes you think that?”
“It's too well planned,” said Saska. “My contact reached me after a talk I gave at a University in Moscow about the rise in mental health issues following the war in France. I didn't see it as a coincidence.”
“Has his identity always been a mystery?” asked Riley.
“Yes. I received coded messages and emails, sometimes even handwritten notes. Not written by him of course. Someone else who perhaps works for him. The information was too accurate to be the result of research - no, my contact had been down here himself, he knew too much.”
“We suspect he was part of the group who hid the cure down here,” added Alex. “He fled when the US set up their Camp Washington and waited until a chance came to organise someone to go back in his place. Saska and I seem to have been 'chosen' by him.”
“Doesn't that bother you?” I asked.
“We've done all we can to protect ourselves but yes, I have to admit that it does. It could all be a trap but I’ve never lived my life like that. You plan for what your enemy can do, not what he might do.”
“Amen,” said Riley.
“The thing that seems odd to me,” he continued, pouring himself another coffee worthy of my own drinking habits. “Is that a name has cropped up a lot down here. It might just be another coincidence but now that I know a little more about you I don't believe it is. The name Jon Francis Miller is on many of the files in this bunker-”
“My Father,” I said, my stomach knotting. “That was his name.”
“Then more pieces of the puzzle are coming together.”
“That would explain the notebook,” said Riley.
“Notebook?”
“My Father kept notebooks in our house. One of them detailed the bunkers he'd come across in his travels. Riley spotted one that stood out from all the others-”
“One that he'd took a lot of pains to make sure Miller noticed.”
“Which?” said Alex.
“The one we just came from.”
Alex sat back and let out a long breath. He looked tired himself and yet there was a glimmer of excitement in his eyes that made them sparkle in the artificial light.
“So there's a chance he knew much more than he ever let on,” he said. “He may have been part of this group behind the cure and the vault. I also suspect that the DNA code for the vault might just be his - or yours.”
“It's possible,” I allowed, feeling a deep tension building inside me. Had Dad planned this moment? Was there some other friend of his thousands of miles away orchestrating this whole thing knowing I was here, knowing that only I might be able to open the vault? “No harm in trying.”
“No, there certainly isn't - and I won't rest until we've done just that. Let's go.”
The vault was down another flight of steps and the four of us went there together. Alex switched on the lights as he went, illuminating the long corridors that ran off in all directions like some kind of sterile maze. It was a disorientating experience and if I had to try to
find my way out of there I didn't think I'd stand a chance.
“It's a big place,” I said.
“Huge,” replied Saska. “We've looked around most of it and it's quite empty except for furniture. There's no signs that any of your people managed to make it here.”
“What about those dead upstairs?” asked Riley.
“They were probably working here at the time and there must have been some kind of accident up there that was self-contained. I didn't really want to find out. We came here to do a job and our work didn't involve that floor.”
“Fair point,” I said.
We came to a set of grey double doors closed with bolts and a padlock that didn't look like it'd been part of the original design.
“We think they added this when they left,” said Alex. "We found the key after a lot of searching, didn't we, Saska?”
“You did. I just watched.”
He slid back the bolts and we went inside. It was almost disappointing to find a single steel door at the other side of a narrow room and only a small chair broke up the monotonous walls. There was a screen mounted on one side for the person sat in the chair to watch, more than likely some kind of guard. Scattered around the door was Alex's tools - wire cutters, USB devices, hacking consoles, all strewn beneath an opening in the wall where a white plastic terminal hung by one screw.
“Sorry about the mess,” he said, gathering up his things and stuffing them into a tool bag. “I'll just wire the reader back in. I hope after all this I haven't damaged the fucking thing.”
He took a few minutes to reconnect the terminal and Riley went and sat in the chair, still eating a slice of toast and sipping at her coffee. Saska folded her arms and glared at Alex.
“There, all done,” he said, stepping back and kicking the bag out of the way. “It pricks your skin so you might want to use a pinkie.”
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