Carmen felt confident and secure and in control. The feeling buoyed her up and was the reason she kept bouncing on the balls of her feet, half-wishing she had something to kick or a song to dance to just as a release for some of her energy.
She was dressed for a mission in her dark training clothes. She had no idea what the material was – something synthetic, Natalia had replied when asked – but it stretched to fit perfectly and weightlessly against her skin. The rubber soles of her boots sprang her up in the air. Ashley had braided her hair back for her and pinned it in place.
Natalia had found her a backpack of supplies. From where, nobody knew but Carmen supposed there must be stores of this kind of thing somewhere. It was light and slotted perfectly between her shoulder blades. It was filled with all the survival kit she might need: torch, light-weight sleeping bag, rations, water, toothbrush, manicure set.
"Manicure set?" Carmen had asked when Ashley had shown her what was in the bag and how to use it. She stared at the sleek black case in astonishment. "What do I want a manicure set for? I'm not going for a makeover."
"They're very useful," Ashley had replied, seriously. "I mean, look."
She flicked the catch and the case popped open to show an array of tiny silver implements on the thin faux-velvet lining.
"See how useful it is?" Ashley had pointed things out, aggravated by Carmen's lack of appreciation. "An assortment of pocket-sized blades, tweezers, all kinds of things. You can use it for first aid, for impromptu torture, for diffusing bombs..."
Carmen raised an incredulous eyebrow.
"And for keeping your nails neat and tidy," Ashley added, closing the case with a satisfying snick. "You'll be amazed."
There were a lot of things Carmen was carrying that surprised her, all light and compact and tucked away neatly inside her backpack. Natalia seemed to have planned for a mission that might last weeks, though there could hardly be that much to explore.
"You might get stuck somewhere," she reasoned. "Or lost. Or anything, really. You're going into the unknown. Be prepared."
"Like all good boy scouts," Carmen sighed in reply.
"What's a boy scout?" Natalia had asked, bewildered.
"Alexei was reading about them," Carmen explained. "He told me. As far as I can understand, they were like the youth corps way back before the war, except friendlier and with less killing and more marshmallows."
"What's a marshmallow?"
Carmen shrugged helplessly. "Search me."
Nigs seemed less keen but even he couldn't help but catch some of Carmen's excitement. His own backpack dangled from his arm as he slouched against a wall, watching Carmen's little bobbing dance with superior amusement.
"When do we go?" Carmen asked Ashley, who had been stationed to supervise them.
"Soon," Ashley glanced at her watch. "Soon. Natalia said at fifteen seconds exactly."
"Natalia has taken control very smoothly," Carmen commented, admiringly. "The girl has a talent."
"You won't die, will you?" Ashley asked, suddenly. "I mean, you will come back? Won't you?"
Carmen blinked at her, startled. "I should think so. What could possibly kill me? Subterra's not exactly full of wild beasts and poisonous plants."
"Other people might," Ashley looked serious. "Or you might fall off something. There could be anything up there. Creatures kept over from before..."
"I will survive," Carmen promised her. "I will come back. Everything will be alright."
Ashley nodded agreeably. "I thought so. I just had to check."
To Carmen's surprise, the girl wrapped her arms around her and hugged her tightly. Carmen hesitated, then hugged back, Ashley's head fitting neatly under her chin.
"Hey," Carmen kissed her russet hair automatically. "Don't worry. It'll be fine."
Nigs cleared his throat loudly. "Six seconds till time."
Ashley stepped back. "Good luck! You're going to need it."
"Thanks a lot," Carmen grinned. "That's really encouraging."
"And it's time!" Nigs crowed, sparking into life.
Carmen shifted the weight of her backpack on her shoulders, waved a final goodbye, and turned to sprint after him down the empty corridor ahead.
Nobody had told them what the diversion plan was. Probably, it was best they didn't know. Their job was to get to the mysterious door and through it without being stopped. Anything else was secondary, no questions asked.
The corridors passed them by soundlessly, without even a door to set them apart from one another. They were eerily identical and Carmen had a sudden stomach-churning vision of running down passages like this forever: white, featureless, softly rounded, glowing with electric light. Until time ended.
"Right," Nigs said, his voice perfectly even. "Then straight on."
They matched strides effortlessly, pacing themselves. It wasn't a long run but who knew what waited? There was something satisfying about running like that anyway: their footfalls and their breaths in time with one another, both confident in the knowledge that they could keep it up for hours. It made Carmen smile to know she was out in the world again, doing something, feeling strong.
"I assume that's it," Nigs said, eventually, as they slowed to a walk. "It being the only door we've seen for a long time."
The door was completely incongruous but, then, it would be. Nothing around here had to advertise. If you'd bothered to come all the way to find this door, you already knew what it was.
"Do you think it's alarmed?" Carmen asked, hesitantly.
"Probably," Nigs inspected the handle. "Nothing for it, is there?"
Without waiting for a reply, he tried the door. It stayed resolutely closed. Carmen swore gently under her breath.
"Don't be stupid," Nigs knelt down, peering into the tiny gap of the lock. "This is nothing I can't do."
He tilted his head sideways, widening his eyes as if he was trying to force his eyeball into the keyhole.
"Nigs?" Carmen coughed gently. "Uh...what can you do?"
"Do you have a small blade?" Nigs inquired. "Something sharp? Preferably flexible. Weak metal, of some kind?"
"All I can say is, Ashley was incredibly foresighted," Carmen fished in her backpack and tossed him the manicure set. "This any good?"
Nigs laughed softly as he opened it up. "Damn. I wish they'd given me one. This will do."
It took maybe a minute of his quiet working while Carmen jiggled around behind him, impatient, spinning all the time to check that nobody was creeping up on them. Eventually, the lock clicked and Nigs stood up, handing the case back to her.
"Impressed?" he flashed her a grin. "In awe of my talents?"
"Let's not push it," Carmen answered. "Can you disable any alarms?"
"That might be beyond me," Nigs confessed. "Let's see if there are any, shall we?"
He pushed the door open. They heard nothing. If there was an alarm, it was sounding far away. But Carmen didn't think there was anything to worry about; the security in this place had proved so lacking this far, why worry now?
Beyond the doorway, a small square room became a staircase that rounded a corner and disappeared from view. Carmen realised, with a strange surge of a feeling she couldn't name, that these were the first hard, angular lines she had seen since she woke up. Nothing here was softly cursive like the rest of Subterra. It was built like a normal room.
"That's strange," she murmured. "Isn't the whole point of having everything rounded so that there are no corners, no weak points?"
"Maybe they don't care about this bit?" Nigs suggested. "Or maybe they built it before they thought of that?"
"I guess we go up?" Carmen took a deep breath. "See what's going on?"
"I guess we do. Ladies first?"
"Why, thank you," Carmen stepped through the doorway with a mincing walk, twirling an imaginary parasol. "Such chivalry."
"My," Nigs said, mockingly, "for a moment I might have thought you a lady."
Carmen stuck out her tongue. "Rather be alive than a lady."
"Damn right," Nigs closed the door behind him. "Race you?"
Carmen's eyes lit up. "Ready?"
"Set?"
"Go!"
They took the stairs two at a time, side by side, elbows jostling for room, trying to stay quiet and laugh at the same time. They should have been taken it seriously, should have been trying to stay hidden and unnoticed, but it had been so long since they'd been out in the closest thing this life had to the real world. They thought they were owed a little fun.
Carmen won the race but only because Nigs surrendered when she nearly pushed him down the stairs again in her efforts to get past him.
"Enough!" he cried, breathlessly. "You'll break my neck if you're not careful!"
Carmen danced an exhausted victory dance. Her calf muscles burned and her heart was racing. She felt good.
"Coward!" she crowed. "I am the rightful king! I am the victor! The champion!"
"Yeah, yeah, I kneel and worship you," Nigs rested a palm against the wall, catching his breath. "I am gracious in defeat."
"You may honour me with your servitude, pitiful worm," Carmen raised her chin haughtily. "Bow before me."
Nigs sank a low bow, brushing his lips over the back of her hand in the process.
"Your highness, all-powerful one," he murmured, "I offer my life in service to you."
For an instant, Carmen was disconcerted and she almost blushed but caught herself just in time. Who knew Nigs could sound so charming?
"That's quite enough of that," Carmen snatched her hand back. "Personal contact is not desired by the all-powerful one."
"What does the all-powerful one desire?" Nigs grinned, mischievously.
"An end to this staircase?" Carmen looked up at the stairs ahead of them, still curving away in never-ending corners. "Do you think it goes to the moon?"
"If you start at the bottom of a coal mine," Nigs quoted, "and make your way to the top, you'll still only be on the ground."
"Is that poetry?" Carmen asked, suspiciously.
"It's just something people say," Nigs shrugged. "It means, if you're low to start with, you're never going to get very high. My brother used to say it about certain people. Their characters were at the bottom of a coal mine, you see. You could improve them a hundredfold and they'd still only be bearable."
"What was your brother like?" Carmen wondered as they began to climb again. "Did he look like you?"
"No, he was taller than me. And broader-shouldered. And his hair was dark. Quite the ladies' man, my brother."
"Whereas you were just the scrawny little gnome he left behind the keep the house?" Carmen summed up.
Nigs looked both offended and entertained. "Alright, Carmen. If I'm a scrawny little gnome, what does that make you?"
"The all-powerful one," Carmen reminded him.
"Ah, of course," Nigs rolled his eyes. "I forgot. Would the all-powerful one care to hurry up? I'd like to get wherever we're going sometime this year."
Carmen skipped lightly up to climb beside him again.
"Well, it's not fair," she complained. "You're on the inside. I have to walk much further round the corners, so I have to walk much faster."
"Your legs are longer," Nigs argued.
"Can't argue with that," Carmen admitted. "They practically come up to your neck. Still..."
On the next flight of stairs, without saying a word, Nigs stepped round her to walk on the outside. Carmen beamed at him. He rolled his eyes in response but he was smiling. They climbed in silence up the staircase to who-knew-where.
By the time the stairs did come to an end, Carmen was exhausted despite herself. They had been climbing for an hour already. She was quite ready to stop for a break and admire the view, not that there was much of one: the walls here looked the same as they did down below, though perhaps a little less well-maintained.
The stairs came to their conclusion in a small square room with a bench put to one side conveniently for the purpose of such breaks. The double doors that led away from it didn't have any windows or locks through which to spy. Carmen's heart raced a little at the thought of the unknown lurking behind. It was the thrilling kind of fear.
"I don't know about you," Carmen flopped onto the bench, "but I think breakfast was a long time ago."
"We don't have the rations to take snack breaks every few minutes," Nigs folded his arms. "You want us to starve in a mysterious underground labyrinth?"
"We're not going to be up here as long as everyone thinks," Carmen objected. "We can afford to eat something."
Nigs's posture didn't change.
"An energy bar?" Carmen suggested. "Just one?"
Nigs simply looked at her.
"We could share one?" Carmen made a desperate last bid.
Nigs sighed and caved. "Alright. We'll share one."
Carmen rummaged in her bag, unzipping the inner compartment with all her food in it.
"Blueberry?" she held up an energy bar.
Nigs took it and turned it over in his hands. "Why not?"
They ate in thoughtful silence, catching their breath and gathering themselves before whatever might happen next. When Nigs finally broke the silence, it was to say:
"You know, these don't taste at all like blueberries."
"Poorly named," Carmen agreed. "Though, you know, they do kind of taste like you'd think blueberries would, if you'd never eaten blueberries."
"Well, I have," Nigs announced, standing up, "and I am disappointed."
"I'm sure they're horrified to have earned your disapproval," Carmen said, sarcastically.
"Ready to move on?" Nigs looked at the doors. "Time to face the great world of the second level?"
"Definitely!" Carmen stuffed the plastic wrapper of the energy bar into her bag. "Ready or not..."
"Here we come," Nigs finished for her, and they set off for the real mission.