Most people believed Level Two, the seat of the authorities, was only accessible via a large elevator, which representatives would take once in a while to visit the lower levels of the bunker city. Those visits had become as rare as the riots had become frequent, and so the elevator was disconnected from the power network most of the time.
What most people didn't know was that there was also stairwell on Level Four leading up to Two. Many such secret passageways crisscrossed throughout the bunker city, most of them only accessible to members of Security or the authorities themselves. It allowed them to be wherever they were needed – or ordered to be – quickly and efficiently.
Access to these passageways was restricted of course, secured by weekly changing passcodes that were distributed only to those with the appropriate roles in the shift rotation. But there wasn't an electronic lock that the highly advanced quantum computer in Alyssa's bracelet couldn't crack.
She didn't need the visor this time. She knew all of the shift rotations and patrol routes by heart, and she knew her former supervisor well enough to trust that none of them had changed. Indeed, as she was lying in wait in a shadowy corner before the entrance to the stairway, a group of five white-armored guards exited just when she had expected it.
Once they had passed, she hurried over to the door. This was easier than infiltrating Espira's apartment. She didn't have to care about not upsetting the immediate future by not leaving any traces, and so she had simply jammed all the surveillance cameras around her with the help of the bracelet. The system was error-prone anyway, so nobody would be suspicious.
Without the visor, it was harder to follow the bracelet's instructions for hacking an electronic door, but her fingers flew over the display quickly, mimicking the displayed on the small screen of the bracelet. With a click, the door opened, and she slipped inside.
The flight of stairs ended at another locked door. She could already hear the clang of heavy boots on metal coming from below. The next shift was arriving, and she'd have to be fast, so she opted to take an alternative route. On the ceiling, there was a metal grid that concealed the entrance to a ventilation shaft. She pushed it open, pulled herself up and put the grid back in place behind her. She held her breath until mere seconds later, the group of guards had passed underneath her.
Then she began her slow crawl through the ventilation shafts. The air up here had always been of higher quality than in the lower levels of the bunker, even now that it was running low the authorities likely made sure of that. She thought of the little girl and her father, how he had almost suffocated in his attempt to follow Alyssa through the abandoned corridors, and Travis, who had chosen a quicker end instead of waiting for suffocation. She wondered what it was that was about to happen in room 57, and why he thought she should see it.
The answer awaited her below now.
Through a fine mesh grid in the ceiling, she had a view on most of the meeting room below. She spotted a large, polished table with about twenty seats. From her position at the edge of the room, she couldn't see everybody's faces, but she recognized a few of the people.
She first spotted her former superior, Reginald Franklin, Head of Security. She had no fond memories of the man. He was easily recognizable by the large bald spot on his head that he pathetically tried to cover up by combing his thin, dark hair across it. Behind him stood two uniformed guards, towering over his bony figure and blazoning their rifles.
Next to him sat Andras Varga, the head of Resource Management. A lady from Health Care and Disease Control was there too. Next to her, somebody from Infrastructure.
A few more individuals she recognized from before the collapse – rich people who had bought themselves a seat of power on this council. It was odd how even in 2157, when everything had gone to shit and people were living in underground bunkers like rats, money, of all things, still held so much value that it could buy that kind of power.
What had once been countless ministries and an entire parliament governing a country had been reduced to two dozen people in this room, their power distilled into something much more acute. These people controlled everything in the bunker city – what people ate, how much water they would get, how much space they would get to live.
Alyssa didn't know all their names, but she had seen this group of people convene before, except that back then, she had stood watch outside the door, and not peeped from a ventilation shaft above.
"May we commence this session now?" Varga, the head of Resource Management asked once everybody had taken a seat.
"Franklin, I'd recommend you ask your attachés to wait outside."
The woman who had spoken sat with her back to Alyssa and was one of the few she couldn't recognize at all. She seemed tall, even as she sat, and wore a dark pantsuit that contrasted with her thick, white hair that she wore in a braid down her back.
Franklin, who was sitting at the far side of the table, raised his balding head and looked at her.
"I trust these men, Nadja," he replied, glowering at the woman across the table.
"At least have them wait over there," the woman said, and gestured to a corner of the room behind her, "It is really hard to focus on a conversation with you with those two brutes waving their weapons around behind your back."
Franklin was about to object, but after staring at the woman for a few moments, he cast down his gaze and nodded. He gestured the guards to do as she had said and they moved into the corner, coming to stand exactly below Alyssa's hiding spot now.
Alyssa could barely believe her eyes. She had never witnessed Franklin submit to anyone. She wondered who this woman, Nadja, was.
"Let us commence the meeting, then," Varga suggested. "You all know why we are gathered here today. The situation is dire, and we are running out of options."
"How much longer have we got?" a small man with a potbelly asked, waving his hand at his sweaty face. He was one of the rich people.
"If we continue to ventilate all sectors as we do currently, we can stretch it for another six weeks, or perhaps eight, max."
"And how long until we can access the surface again?"
"Current estimates are... pessimistic. News from the surface have come in irregularly over the last few weeks and as you all know our monitoring stations have long since been damaged. We rely on the updates of our remaining forces in orbit. Last reports speak of radiation levels and a toxic atmosphere that will be barely habitable in three months, earliest."
A murmur went through the room, and Alyssa tensed in her hiding spot. To hear it spelled out so clearly and rationally was ten times worse than listening to the feverish confession of Travis the Computer Guy in the canteen.
"So we have no other choice, then," Varga said flatly. "We will initiate the-"
"Varga," the white-haired woman said, a warning tone to her voice.
"Well, what else would you have me do, Nadja?"
Alyssa could feel goosebumps rise up on her skin. Whatever were they talking about?
"I just wanted to suggest... Why don't you remind the council of the steps of the protocol, Varga," the woman in gray said icily.
Varga nodded and cleared his throat.
"The first step is to bring all chosen survivors together in the main hall on Level Three. A pretense shall serve to get them there. Then, we cut off the rest of the lower levels from the ventilation system. Ten minutes should suffice easily. Once they are dead, we re-ventilate only the most crucial parts of the bunker, like the recycling systems on Level Seven, the engine rooms on Five and Four, and a part of the food stations on two. With the remaining resources, we should be able to survive another year, potentially more if we cut down the population again after six months, depending on the developments above ground."
Silence descended over the room, and in her hideout above it, Alyssa clasped her hands over her mouth to muffle a surprised gasp.
"When will we commence?" Franklin broke the silence.
"Will?" Nadja repeated. "Have I missed the fact that the council has already voted and come to a decision?"
"Tomorrow," Varga replied despite her remark.
Up in the shaft, Alyssa began to tremble. The metal panes around her rattled slightly, and one of the guards cast a quick look up, but he didn't seem alerted to her presence. She rolled over, lying flat on her back and pressing her hands over her mouth to keep herself from sobbing.
She thought of Leon, and how she had hoped that she would at least get to cherish what they had found in each other for a little while longer. Staring up at the ceiling of the shaft, tears began to well up in her eyes, and a feeling of utter, nauseating dread took hold of her. She barely registered the scene playing out in the room below.
"You really want to go through with this?" Nadja asked.
"Well what would you have me do?" Varga asked. "We have to make sure that at least some people survive."
"And those people shall be you, I take it."
"Somebody has to keep this city running. So we will carefully choose, based on qualification and skill-"
"Of course. And what about, let's say, moneybag over there?"
"Me?" the corpulent man who had spoken before squeaked in surprise.
"What's his special skill set that makes him so indispensable to the survival of this city?"
"Nadja, enough," Franklin cut her off sternly. "You have been brought to this table-"
"Oh, no need to remind me of my responsibilities, Franklin." There was the sound of a chair scratching over the floor. "I know who I serve. Do you?"
There was no response, only footsteps and a slamming door.
"Well," Franklin sighed. "Now that that minor nuisance is out of the way, shall we cont-"
"I cannot stand with this decision either." The woman who had spoken was from Health Care and Disease Control. "It was bad enough when we began to drug the water supply to quell the riots. But this goes against everything I believe in."
"I agree with Kyra," an unfamiliar voice proclaimed. "We cannot do this. Not... like this. If it is really down to saving humanity, to preserving us as a species, we here shouldn't be exempt from this... culling. Only those who are absolutely needed to maintain the bunker city and re-build a civilization should be chosen."
"That's very idealistic of you, Mister Devon, but your days as a philanthropist are over," Franklin said, his voice laced with venom. "The people in the bunkers need a government. They need us."
"No, you need them," the woman named Kyra replied. "You- we rely on them to grow our food, to maintain the machines that recycle our water, and provide power-"
"Kyra, be reasonable."
Another chair scratching over the floor.
"I will not stand for this."
"Then you will not stand at all."
Franklin's words were followed by the sudden sound of a gunshot that made Alyssa jolt. Cries of surprise reached her ear. Breaking out of her stupor, she rolled over on her stomach again and peered through the mesh. One of the guards had shot the woman, right in the head.
"Kyra! No! What the hell, Franklin!" Devon hurried to her side and crouched over the woman's body.
Another shot rang out. Devon dropped dead on top of her. Franklin lowered his hand, and the guard lowered his rifle again.
"Very well. Now does anybody else have any objections to the plan?"
Nobody replied.
"Good," Franklin laced his fingers together and rested them on the table before him "Now go and find Nadja. We cannot risk having her go public with this information before we have everything set in motion."
"Yes, sir!" the guards replied.
They didn't get far.
Alyssa felt a surge of wild anger well up within her, a fire that ignited her whole body and chased away any remaining sense of paralysis. Her numb shock was replaced with absolute fury. She drew her legs in and stomped against the metal grid. It dropped down on one of the guards below who tumbled under the impact. Immediately after, he was hit by the full weight of her body as she dropped herself through the opening.
She was fast, too fast for them to process what was happening. She landed on the man's shoulders, quickly wrapping her legs around his neck and placing her hands on the sides of his helmet. He collapsed under her weight and the impact of her fall, but before his knees hit the ground, she twisted and broke his neck.
The other guard raised his rifle but she was already back on her feet, grabbed it with both hands and smashed it back flat against his face. His helmet saved him from the worst of the blow, but he let go of the weapon with a cry of surprise, so she tore it from his hands and shot him – right at the weak spot of the armor, between the collar and the helmet.
And then she turned around, rifle readied, the dead bodies of the two guards piling before her feet.
Franklin rose from his seat, eyes wide with shock. "Who the hell-"
And when there was no more hope, she became vengeance.