Children of the Wastes (The Aionach Saga Book 2)

by J. C. Staudt

  “I see. Did your mom ever come here?”

  “Nope. Not that I ever saw.”

  “So that building back there is the office, I’m assuming.”

  “Yeah.”

  “It’s been unused for how long?”

  Savannah shrugged. “Since my grandpa was alive.”

  Raith shook the fence, gauging its durability. “If I wanted to get in there… would you mind me climbing over?”

  She wrinkled her mouth. “Are you planning to float through that razorwire like a ghost? You’d still need the keys to the building, which I don’t have.”

  “Maybe it’s unlocked.”

  “I doubt it. Like I told you, Dad was real protective over this place.”

  “That just makes me more intrigued about what could be inside,” Raith said with a laugh.

  “You know, the more I think about it, it’s possible the stuff you’re looking for is in there. I don’t know if it’s damaged, or whatever. But the whole place can’t be empty, right?”

  Raith gripped the fence. “Do you want to come with me? Getting in is no problem. Getting in without breaking something, well… that might prove a challenge.”

  Savannah gave a shy smile. “I’m wearing a dress. Didn’t think I was going to be climbing fences today. Let me go back and change.”

  She did. When she came back, she was wearing a pair of ripped jean shorts and a sleeveless cotton shirt, carrying a crowbar and a set of bolt cutters.

  “What are those for?” Raith asked, pointing.

  She smiled. “Getting in without breaking something.”

  Raith considered explaining why the skin on his hands was so dark; telling her they didn’t need these tools because of what he could do. But that would come in time, and only if necessary. Savannah may have been Myriad’s daughter, but that was no guarantee she was a healer. “I guess we just snip the padlock and open the gate. No need to climb up and tangle with that razorwire anymore.”

  She flung an arm and let it slap her thigh. “You mean I changed for nothing?”

  Raith chuckled as he took the bolt cutters from her. “I didn’t know you had these.”

  With a single snip, the padlock fell off and the gates squeaked open. They walked the stacks of crates, alert for signs of new occupants. Satisfied there were none, they made their way to the building. The light-star was beating down, and though they’d stuck to the shade of the stacks they were both sweat-drenched by the time they got there.

  It was a squat, one-story building made of dark brick, flat-roofed and crumbling. Raith tried first the front door, then the back. The windows were tall and narrow, and flush with the window wells, so there was nothing to stick a crowbar into from the outside.

  Raith was unused to letting physical barriers stand in his way, so abstaining from ignition was an exercise in restraint. After how quickly Merrick had turned against him, he thought it best to tread carefully around Savannah. “Well,” he said after a few minutes of searching, “what do you think about breaking a window? Would you be opposed to the idea?”

  Savannah creased her bottom lip. “We broke the lock,” she said with a sigh. “Might as well smash a window.”

  Raith made sure to knock away all the bare shards before he went through the window frame. He was surprised the building had all its windows intact, though some did look newer than others. In Belmond, he doubted there was a fully-windowed building in the whole city.

  Humidity wrapped him in its arms as he stepped inside. A musty odor lay over everything, along with a thick coating of dust. The first room was stark: two desks, a bookshelf, a floor lamp, and a door leading to the hallway. Both desks were empty, drawers and all.

  Savannah followed him inside, and they moved on. More offices off the hallway, most with only one desk. Men’s and women’s bathrooms. A lobby with a curved receptionist’s station. A conference room. A big common area packed with tiny cubicles. Empty, empty, empty.

  Then they followed the hallway in the opposite direction and came to one last door at the end. Inside was the big corner office, with the domineering desk and a seating area for guests. This was where the patriarch had worked, Raith guessed—generations of them, for years and years before the Heat.

  This desk was empty too.

  “Is that it?” Savannah asked. “Have we seen everything?”

  “It looks that way,” Raith said, crestfallen.

  “Sorry,” Savannah said. “I feel really bad that we didn’t find what you were looking for.”

  “It’s alright,” said Raith. But it wasn’t. “I suppose I should take one last look around your study. If you don’t mind.”

  “No. No, not at all. Come on, let’s—” She stopped when she saw Raith squinting at the wall. The room’s rear left corner wasn’t quite as far over as it should’ve been.

  He went to it. A hairline seam he could only see in direct daylight ran from floor to ceiling. He pushed. The wall snapped open, like one of those toggling box lids with the magnet inside. The hidden door swung back to reveal a narrow corridor which ran alongside the wall until it hit a staircase and descended into darkness. “Your family has a thing for hidden doors, don’t they?” he remarked.

  “I guess so.”

  “If there’s anything to be found in here, I’m willing to bet it’s this way.”

  When she looked at him, he could see the fear in her eyes. She tried to hide it with brave words. “We should go down, then. Do you have anything we can use as a light?”

  Raith looked at his hands. “With a cloth, some oil, and a table leg, maybe.”

  “If it’s a torch you want, I’ve got plenty of those back up at the house,” she said with a nervous laugh. “It’s a shame I didn’t think to bring one.”

  “It’s broad daylight. Who would’ve thought?”

  “You want to go back?”

  “I can burn for a little while,” Raith said.

  “What do you mean burn?”

  When his fingertips glowed to life, she jumped back. “What is that? What are you doing?”

  Raith stopped. “I have some of the same powers your mother had. I’m guessing you never saw her do anything like that.”

  Savannah gave a quick shake of her head.

  “And you said her hands never looked like this? No strange coloring in her skin?”

  Another shake.

  “The more we ignite, the darker the skin gets. She must have gone without igniting for a long time. I don’t know how, but she must have. She did have fingernails, I assume?”

  “Yeah,” Savannah said with a strange look, as if it should’ve been obvious.

  What were you doing here, Myri? Why did you come? Why do you keep picking up your life and leaving again? And where have you gone this time? Raith entered the passage and moved toward the stairs, Savannah close behind him. Exploring whatever was down there might take longer than the light from his hands would last, so they’d have to be quick about it. His worries were soon assuaged, however. In a cubbyhole between wall studs at the top of the stairs sat an oil lamp and a striker. “That’s a fortunate stroke of fate, isn’t it?” he said, lighting the lamp.

  “You need to tell me more about this thing with your hands after we’re done,” Savannah said.

  Shadows swayed over the steps as they descended into darkness. The staircase went on for a long time—longer than a single story’s worth, Raith was sure. They went down so far Raith could feel the temperature change; still stuffy, but five or ten degrees cooler. When they got to the bottom, he was astonished at what he saw.

  Their footsteps clanked onto smooth metal flooring, sending echoes across the expansive chamber before them, a multi-tiered metal landscape of ramps and staircases leading to various screens and consoles. The glow from the oil lamp was nowhere near strong enough to reach the opposite side of the room, but Raith could see rows of lightbeam panels running up the walls and across the ceiling, where tubular ducts and thick wires entered and exited through porth
oles in the paneling.

  Furry, podlike shapes hung from the ceiling above. Bats. Mounds of their guano speckled the floor. The room’s most astonishing characteristic, as far as Raith was concerned, was how much it reminded him of Decylum. The layout was different, but the architecture was very much the same.

  “High Infernal,” Savannah breathed.

  “Your dad never told you this was down here?”

  She shook her head.

  “Any idea what it’s for?”

  “None whatsoever.”

  “I think we should have a look around. Here.” Several more oil lamps hung from mounting brackets on the wall which looked like they’d been tacked on to replace the electrified lightbeams. Raith took one down and used his own lamp to light it, then handed it to Savannah. “In case we get separated.”

  Her brow darkened. “Why would we get separated?”

  “We won’t,” he said. “Stay close.”

  Two corridors led off the main room, one to the left and another straight ahead. Raith let Savannah choose. Left, she decided. The hallways, austere hexagonal passages with smooth flooring and dead lightbeams running their lengths, made Raith feel like he was home. Though there were spots overgrown with moss and the occasional mold infestation, the structure appeared intact, and he saw no apparent flaws in its craftsmanship.

  Curious, he ignited and reached out to touch one of the lightbeams. The device made a sputtering sound, then crackled to life, filling the corridor with pale blue light.

  “What’s that?” Savannah asked, shielding her eyes from the sudden brightness. “How did you do that?”

  “Back when this place had power, the main generator would’ve fed these like any other light fixture,” he explained. “They hold a charge, even without constant electricity. You can take them off the wall and carry them around if you need a light. Ingenious devices.”

  “How did you know what to do with it?”

  “This place,” Raith said, “is like a smaller version of Decylum. The halls back home look just like this. The walls, the lights… even the floors.”

  That was when Raith knew he’d stumbled upon a treasure trove of resources the likes of which he could never have imagined. This place has everything we could ever need to expand Decylum, he thought excitedly. There would be no jury-rigging, no melting down and reforming random scrap to fit Decylum’s design. Everything would fit perfectly as-is, down to the last bolt and rivet; a natural extension of what’s already there. The find might even grant him some small piece of redemption with Decylum’s people. Unlikely, given the death toll of the expedition. But the knowledge of this place alone was better than coming home empty-handed.

  “So yours is the same sort of facility as this?” Savannah asked.

  “It’s made of the same stuff, and probably from similar blueprints. Ours came equipped with more in the way of supplies and renewable resources than I’ve seen here so far. Let’s keep looking.”

  The corridor turned back on itself a few times before arriving at a dead end. Doors along the way opened into a series of stark hab units, most of them fully furnished. There wasn’t much else.

  They returned to the main room and followed the second and only remaining passage. This time, the corridor ended in a set of sliding doors that opened onto a deep scaffolded stairwell. They clattered down two crisscrossing flights of steps into another large, open chamber lined with thick pipes and tall metal holding tanks of various sizes. Decylum had plenty of these, used for everything from processing waste to transforming electrical power.

  Beyond the clusters of processing tanks lay a vast garden area bordered by grated metal walkways, over which the familiar hanging heat lamps that mimicked artificial daylight were suspended. As they drew closer, they could see weeds, troops of fungi, and the snaking tendrils of vines growing up the handrails. Every patch of earth was covered in languid greens and browns, the sorts of plants that grew without daylight. Wall-length windows surrounded the garden on three sides, looking in on bleak, clinical rooms resembling the laboratories in Decylum.

  “What is this place?”

  “It looks like an early model of the hydroponic gardens we have back home. You know, speaking of home, I don’t think I ever told you why we left.”

  “No, I don’t think you did.”

  “The short answer is, we’re growing too fast. We’re running out of room to house everyone. We meant to bring raw materials back from Belmond, but the Scarred attacked us when we arrived.”

  “Can everyone who lives there still make babies?”

  “We haven’t had the same problem as the above-worlders, that’s certain.”

  “I wonder why. Living underground?”

  “Yes, that’s almost certainly the reason. We’re healthier, too. We seldom have problems with light-sickness or mutantism, except among our hunters.”

  “Who are they?”

  “The people who explore the above-world and take down game for us.”

  “You have a garden like this and you still have trouble feeding everyone? You really do have an overpopulation problem. That’s unheard-of in the Aionach.”

  “I know. And our gardens are even bigger than this one.”

  Savannah stopped. “Did you hear that?”

  Raith stopped as well. “No. What?”

  She listened. “Never mind.”

  They continued on through the room, climbing a shallow set of steps onto the metal walkway suspended over the gardens. The platform swayed beneath their combined weight, its supports squeaking with age. Something moved in the stand of weeds off to their right, subtle as a soft breeze. They kept going, headed toward the doors leading into the laboratory area.

  The doors were sealed; heavy things with a black plastic keycard access box on the wall to the left. Raith opened this the same way he’d opened the hab units on the level above. A short ignition melted the plastic locking tabs on either side of the access box, allowing him to remove the cover and let it dangle by the wires. Another ignition shorted the circuit and activated the admittance chip.

  The deadbolt clicked open, and the doors swayed inward.

  Monitors and computer consoles were positioned along aisles crowded with rolling chairs, neat and orderly despite the film of age lying over them. Long work counters ran the length of the room beneath stainless-steel shelving units lined with supply bins. Lab machinery stood in stark gray plastic.

  Raith Entradi’s father had been a Ministry scientist, but he himself was far removed from that vocation. It was anyone’s guess what all of this was for—what all of this had been for. There was one group of objects whose purpose Raith did know: the stack of vaculock crates piled in the back corner.

  “Pretty fancy-looking boxes,” Savannah said when Raith went over to them.

  “In my experience, they’re most often used for storing sensitive materials,” he said. “The locking mechanism creates an airtight seal around whatever’s inside. Anything from bodily organs being carted for transplant to something as simple as clothing stored in an outdoor or non-climate-controlled space.”

  When he pressed the button on the top crate, there was a hiss of air. The four sealing mechanisms in the corners slid toward the center panel, freeing the lid. Raith lifted it. Hanging file folders were crammed inside, thick with stacks of printed white paper. He selected a small stack at random and pulled it out. What he saw on the front page startled him.

  “These are company documents, printed on Glaive Industries letterhead. This one appears to be a contract for the construction of the Jerigan Building in downtown Belmond. This one is a project proposal for something called the Hawk Initiative. This is the kind of thing we’ve been looking for. There must be something about Decylum in here.”

  Savannah helped him search the crates. It took hours to unlock and shuffle through them all. Not everything they found was as innocuous as a sales contract or a project plan. Some were one-sheet memos mentioning their subject matter only by name
, or referring to it in enigmatic language. Huge swathes of text had been redacted with thick bands of black ink. By the time they got to the last box, they’d discovered the existence of several other underground facilities, but nothing about Decylum.

  Raith inhaled a tentative breath as he pressed the locking button to release the seal on the last box. The lid came off, and he began thumbing through the papers inside. Savannah stood and stretched, then took a stack of her own.

  It wasn’t until they’d come almost to the end that Savannah looked up and asked, “How do you spell Decylum?”

  “Here. Give it here,” Raith said.

  She handed him the booklet, a stack of papers stapled in the upper left corner. Raith began to read, flipping through from front to back. Beneath the official Ministry letterhead, the first page read:

  MEMORANDUM OF AGREEMENT

  BETWEEN

  THE NATIONAL MINISTRY OF THE INNER EAST

  AND

  GLAIVE INDUSTRIES

  Subject: Construction of Decylum Research Facility for Department of Health, Cellular Research Division

  1. PARTIES. This Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) is entered into by the above parties for the design and construction of a secure facility at (undisclosed location) for full-time execution of confidential Ministry research and development.

  2. PURPOSE. The purpose of this Agreement is to set forth terms by which Glaive Industries will provide personnel, equipment, and oversight for design-build planning and construction according to specifications provided by The National Ministry’s Cellular Research Division. Implementing this Agreement will increase the overall capacity and capability of The National Ministry in its efforts to evaluate the consequences of unexplained natural phenomena and the potential for global catastrophe in the event of solar anomaly.

  3. SCOPE. Glaive Industries and The National Ministry agree to collaborate on the Project from concept to completion, its culmination being a five-story superstructure, primarily subterranean, capable of housing up to four-hundred (400) personnel in year-round comfort. Closed environment must include filtered clean-air ventilation, waste and potable water processing capabilities, and sustainable power, all within a self-contained, continuous ecosystem.