We paused before a flight of steps leading down. Fifteen or so steps descended to the first landing, before turning 180 degrees and continuing downward to the next level.
Michael and Julian followed Makara down the metal steps. Michael held his AR at the ready, while Julian kept his handgun in his right hand. Samuel and I, once again, brought up the rear. I glanced backward, scanning with my light to make sure nothing was tailing us. Still clear. I followed everyone downstairs.
We went down a couple of levels before the stairs came to a stop. I had expected this flight to go all the way down, but apparently we had to find another way to reach the hangar. Makara walked at a slow, careful pace. Her flashlight revealed many open doorways in the corridor — doorways from which threats could attack us. Every few moments she paused, listening, causing the rest of us to follow suit. There was nothing but our breaths.
“Keep moving,” Samuel said. His voice, though soft, carried in the confines of the corridor.
We had walked a few more steps when boots pounded on metal. They came from behind.
I whirled around, shining my light into the darkness. There was no one there; they must have ducked into one of the doorways I’d just passed.
“Who’s there?” I called.
From ahead came more stomping of boots. We pressed against each other back-to-back, our guns pointed ahead and behind.
“Lords or Angels?” a male voice called from Makara’s direction.
She stepped forward. “Angels. Who are you?”
The man didn’t answer immediately. I was ready to snap into action, shooting whoever jumped out at me.
“Makara?”
This caused other men in the shadows to murmur. If I had to guess, there were maybe ten of them. We were far outnumbered.
“Yeah,” she said. “Who are you? What happened here?”
“Makara, we thought you were dead,” the man said. “Where were you? What happened?”
The man had a strange accent, like none I’d ever heard spoken before. It tickled at my memory, though; I felt like I’d seen a movie where I heard a similar manner of speaking. The accent, though detectable, was buried under the gruff way of speaking that was common to most Raiders.
I realized that what I was hearing was an English accent. This man must have been born there, but had been living in the U.S. when Ragnarok fell — which meant that he had stayed here.
“Tell me who you are, first,” Makara said. “For all I know, this is a trick. And I need you to put your weapons down.”
“You don’t have to worry,” the man said. “Former Lost Angel under Raine, and now I’m one of Char’s Raiders. I’m setting my gun on the floor, and stepping forward. My men will do the same.”
Before Makara could say anything, I heard the thud of guns being set on the floor. A moment later, the man stepped out of a doorway, hands on his head, into Makara’s flashlight beam. Makara’s arms stiffened.
“I’m Lionel,” he said. “Lionel Pierce. We’re all Angels who’ve been hiding up here since the Lords betrayed us.”
I watched Lionel as he spoke, trying to figure out if we could trust him. He certainly looked like he’d grown up in the Old World, and his face was familiar to me. He had a grizzled white beard, and the wrinkles on his face told me he was at least in his late fifties. Maybe even younger, given the harshness of the world.
“I recognize you,” Makara said, “though we’ve never spoken. How many do you have with you?”
“Here, I have nine. If you mean how many Angels are left…there’s no way of knowing that. There’s less every day. They turned on us three days ago, during lights out. Forced the rest of us up here. They keep pushing us back, and we keep going further up. This place is big…far bigger than we expected.”
Makara nodded. “Alright.” She relaxed a bit, lowering her weapon. She motioned us to do the same. “Where are you headed, now?”
The man pointed upward. “We were trying to find a way out of here.”
“Don’t do that,” Makara said. “We have to take this place back. That’s why we came.”
“If you don’t mind me asking,” Lionel said, “what happened to you guys?”
“We lost the spaceships in an air battle with dragons. We found another one. As soon as we did, we came back here to clean up this mess.”
“Everyone thinks you’re dead. But now that you’re here…if we could somehow band together, we might have a shot of pushing them back. It’ll be hard, though. They have most of the supplies, and they’re working together.”
“We have some extra guns, if your men need them,” Makara said. “And yes, we need to work together…focus on finding other groups and taking the fight to them.”
“Alright,” Lionel said. “We’ll join up, then. This Bunker still has lots of supplies lying around. Weapons. Even food, sometimes. But the Lords still outnumber and outgun us.”
“The only way we can win is by taking the right fights,” Makara said. She nodded at Lionel. “You can take up your weapons again. Let’s get out of this corridor and find a safe spot to make a plan.”
Lionel nodded. “Alright. There’s a corridor nearby that we haven’t explored yet.”
“Lead us there,” Makara said.
Lionel gave a nod and ducked into an open doorway. The men who had waited in the darkness brushed past, acknowledging Samuel and me with nods. They looked thin and tired.
After they filed after their leader, we followed them.
Chapter 10
We followed Lionel and his band of Angels into a room that must have once been a dormitory. Several bunks lay angled from the wall, stripped of sheets. A soiled mattress lay haphazardly on the floor. A bulletin board still had yellowed announcements tacked to it. Seeing the evidence of life in this fallen Bunker was haunting.
Lionel turned left. The dorm stretched a long way, and we passed row after row of bunks. In Bunker 108, we had full apartments, but here, it was more austere and militaristic. Beside each bunk was a small, metal nightstand, and at each one’s foot was a metal trunk. Some of the trunks were locked, but others had been busted open, revealing empty interiors.
Once we reached the end of the dorm, another doorway opened on our right, leading into darkness.
“This is the corridor I was talking about,” Lionel said.
“Where do you think it goes?” Samuel asked.
“Guess we’re about to find out.”
Lionel and his Angels went through the doorway. We followed.
The corridor was dark and claustrophobic. There was about a foot of space above my head, and hardly room for two people to walk side by side. The hallway took a sudden ninety-degree turn to the left. We walked a moment longer before it turned ninety degrees to the right. It was a strange bit of planning, and I had no idea what purpose it served.
Ahead, the corridor opened into a wide, cavernous space. Everyone filtered out and stood in the open area, gazing at the room in wonder. Makara, Lionel, and I shined our flashlight beams around. Banks of silver servers lined the wall directly to our left. Ahead, glass windows separated us from a large, conference-style room with rows of computers. The computers were down one level, in a sunken control center accessible only by steps leading down. We stood on a balcony overhanging that room. It looked like a place from which military operations would be conducted. A gigantic screen spread across the far wall of the control room. The display screen, along with all the computers, was dark.
“What is this place?” Makara asked.
“The Command Center,” Samuel said. “Bunker One had a similar setup. I’m surprised there’s one of this magnitude in Bunker 84. It’s nearly as large as Bunker One’s.”