Colony Three (PAUSED)

Vault

Vault

I lie flat on my stomach, looking down between pieces of rock at the light. It's leaking from a gap in the jagged concrete, maybe half a meter below. A thick piece of something shiny pokes out, metal? I stand back up, and that's when I notice somthing about the wreckage.

The debris is lying on top of more concrete, another layer, another layer that's perfectly level. I find an unblocked section and feel the flat concrete. There are thin slits in the rock, and a weak stream of air pumps out. They're vents.

I'm standing on the roof of some other building, buried beneath the wreckage of the old reaserch station.

Does Father know about this?

I doubt he would miss something like it, but then again, I didn't see anything about a second building beneath the first in his...vision.

But if he didn't know about the second building, what was he expecting to find down here? The building he was searching for that I saw in his thoughts was whole, undamaged. It looked like it was newly built...

A little piece of recognition pokes at the forefront of my brain. Father had worked somewhere right before the fall...somewhere important. I remember him being upset that he couldn't get back to it, and a fervernt rant about how he would get back to it, someday. Could it have been the now ruined station?

I wedge my climbing axe beneath one of the smaller pieces of concrete blocking the piece of metal. With a few tugs I lever it free. I repeat this process, panting and breathing clouds of water-vapor smoke, until the battered iron door, swinging open on broken hinges, is visible.

I start to squeeze through the gap I've created but my pack gets caught on the jagged pieces; I have to shove it though before me. I worm my way through the crushed rock and emerge into an impeccably clean airlock. My pack, dirt sprayed in a small ring around it, is a cancer on the pristine tile surfaces. I scoop it up and brush away some of the dirt.

The lights illuminating the room are in glass cases recessed into the celing, their plastic casings crusted with ice. I prop the iron door shut with a chunk of concrete. I don't want to be found until I find out exactly what Father's looking for.

My rash decision to simply climb two miles into an abyss hovers behind me, threatening. I shove it away and look for a way to procede.

There's another door in the airlock, a keypad to let me into the rest of the building attached to the wall next to the handle, but the buttons won't move. I grab my Sear, dial it all the way down, and give the pad a short burst of heat.

The ice sprays away from the pad in a cloud of steam and ice shards. I pull off the glove of my Exposure suit and tap tentatively on the keys. They're hot to the touch, but I can push them now. I clip the Sear back onto my belt and close my eyes.

Yeah, I don't have the faintest clue what the code is.

***

It's really cold in here. My Exposure suit must have a tear or twenty because the cold is seeping in, slowly and surely. My skin feels clammy. I check the suits tiny battery, half charge, and dial up the heat. Having a bit of electricity left won't do anything to keep me from freezing to death.

I wrack my memory for the code. I'm positive I saw Father type it somewhere in his vision about the other station, and maybe the codes are the same. I'm assuming the reaserch station people knew about this building, or at least, some of them knew. Father sure didn't.

I start trying the first numbers to come to mind. 2/4/22, Father's birthday. Definnately not.

2/23/55, the end of the Before. Nope.

12345.

54321.

Nothing works.

I tap my fingers absent mindedly on the pad. After twenty minutes, the only sign of progress is the lights in the room, which have dimmed the slightest bit. In fustration, I shoot the keypad again.

Something appears beneath the ice to the right of the pad.

A little metal card, wedged into a gap in the concrete walls, is just beneath the surface of the ice. I use the Sear to melt it out carefully, and etched into one side of the card is a string of numbers.

2/23/30. I punch them into the keypad.

The airlock door snicks open and without hesitation I head inside.

***

The interior of the building is suprisingly clean, all the walls still a pale eggshell white. The cieling lights are free of ice, and the bright white light almost blinds me. The sheer purity of the building makes my skin crawl. I feel like a disease inside such a well maintained place.

A few more meters down the hall and I emerge into a somewhat larger room, square, with two passages leading out of each wall. Metal signs are bolted above the doors.

I struggle to read the names; my Anglish isn't that good. I pick the passage labled 'Virulient Modifications' and start down it.

Strangely, there aren't any other security measures within the building. I walk in peace for a while, the white walls blurring in my memory, and emerge into a room significantly larger than the one with all of the hall entrances in it.

Row upon row of steel shelves line the room. Long rectangular drawers pull out of the shelves on either side. I tug open one and find a plastic card with a quick description in Anglish, and a plastic packet of seeds.

My jaw drops open a bit. I yank open drawer after drawer, each one filled with different types of seeds. The sheer number of them overwhelms me.

I pull open a drawer on the top shelf, a little rex 'x' scratched on the front, and find a name card I can read.

Vinea lilium, Lillyvine.

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A/N Sorry to include this, but I want to remind everyone to vote if you like the chapter, and to comment on stuff that interests you.

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