The Deathless Trilogy

1.21. The Chamber

Moonlight from the window illuminates the room, and Declan and I walk toward the ghostly outline of the table. At night, the chandelier above us looks more like a net, waiting to fall and ensnare us, but Declan rushes forward.

"What are you hiding?" he mumbles to himself as he flips through the papers.

"Do you think it's something big?" I ask.

He pushes his glasses up the slant of his nose. "They don't trust many people, so it could be something stupid like a list of weapons. But you're right, something weird is going on. I think it could be something bigger." He points at one of the pages. "Aha! Like this," he says. "Blueprints of the bunker. Why won't they show us these?"

He lifts them from the table, and I follow as he scurries to the window. He turns his body so the moonlight shines directly on the blue pages, and sets them on the ground.

"You were in the bunker," I say, kneeling beside him, "so don't you know where everything is?"

"We were kept in specific areas," he says distractedly, so I join him in reviewing the prints, even though we've been running through the bunker in the immersions. I'm more interested in the blue light slipping through the cracks in the wall. How can we open the chamber?

"See, look," he says, pointing to a system of drains and air vents behind the walls of the bunker rooms. "Why aren't we using these? We could get into the bunker undetected if Mitchell disabled the security system, and probably save a ton of lives, you know? It's like... why don't they talk to me about this stuff?"

I forget the blue light for the moment, and focus entirely on the blueprints. All of the hallways and staircases stem from the main foyer, which I've seen in the immersions. There are five levels reaching into the earth, but the last two are for waste and recycling only. The first three include military headquarters on level one; a food management center, cafeteria, and the President's Quarters on level two; and the scientific laboratories on level three, including a room called "Command Center," a huge room called "Cryogenics Project," and a room simply called "Cryogenics."

The walls of all these levels are surrounded by an in-wall ventilation system for air circulation and a drainage system, probably in case of flood or accidental spillage or something. Being underground has its disadvantages.

"You're right," I say, running my finger over the ventilation system from the President's Quarters to the outside world. "We could easily slip in from the outer grate, and attack from inside. Why wouldn't the leaders want to use them?"

He groans and rolls his eyes. "Because they want to make an entrance. They want to show the President that we can send his empire tumbling down, you know? This isn't about what's smart. It's about what will make a bigger statement. What will get them remembered."

"By who? If we're all dead, no one can remember us."

He shakes his head and shrugs. "If they cared, we'd be using the drains and vents."

"We should do something," I say. "We have to tell someone."

"Like the leaders?" Then his eyes light up. "Wait... the General. We can tell General Sato at the refugee camp. We will just have to suggest it, and he'll agree it's the better call. He's an Army General. His word is final. He'll change the plans and we will train with the new scenario, and hopefully he will call Phoebe, Winston, and Alexander out on their irresponsibility."

"And you trust him?"

"He was one of the first people to leave the government. He was the first Deathless. He's always been kind to me and the survivors we've brought back to the refugee camp. We can trust him." He springs up from beneath the circular window, the blueprints in his hands, and returns to the table. "What else aren't they sharing? Where's the list?"