“Got him?” Three called down.
“Yep.”
Cass felt Wren’s weight settle on her as Three released him, and in the next moment, Three dropped lightly to his feet in front of her, bypassing the stairs entirely.
“Straight ahead,” he said, nodding down the narrow hall. “Make yourself comfortable.”
Above them, the opening in the concrete shrank to nothingness, sealed magnetically, without sign or trace of ever having opened. The hall was faintly lit in a bluish-hued glow that nevertheless seemed somehow warm, and Cass realized the light was coming from the end of the hall, perhaps ten or fifteen meters away.
She carried Wren down the corridor to the end, where it turned sharply and opened out into a room. It was simple, Spartan in its furnishing, almost monastic. The floor was concrete, smooth and gray. A pair of small metal-framed beds with thin mattresses sat pushed to the matching gray wall on the left, separated by a thin screen. Across from the beds sat a simple table, and two mismatched and worn chairs. An alcove ran off to one side; within it sat a waste-recycler, and a jerry-rigged filtering system that Cass guessed served as a shower. There was a drain in the floor. Through a small doorframe without any door there was another, compact room, more of an oversized closet than anything. Cass set Wren down, and poked her head into the room. Metal shelving lined the walls wherever there was space, stocked with all manner of supplies. Piles of clothes, worn but in decent condition, military rations, shoes, lengths of synthrope, biochem batteries, water canisters. Wren just stood there taking it all in, mouth slightly open.
“What is this place?” she asked.
“Wayhouse,” Three answered, emerging from the entryway. “Not much to look at, but should be safe enough for a day or two.”
“Is it yours?”
“For now, yeah.”
As usual, Three wasn’t really answering her question, and it annoyed Cass. She felt light-headed, empty, the room seemed to tilt ever so slightly to the left. Three must’ve read her.
“You alright?”
Cass nodded, closed her eyes.
“I just need to rest.”
What she needed was quint, and soon. She couldn’t think about it now though, her brain was too foggy with fatigue and hunger. She’d figure it out. She always had before. Wren slipped up next to her, and took her hand. It felt small in hers.
“Before you sleep, let me show you something.”
“Can’t it wait?” she asked, opening her eyes.
“No.”
He took her by the arm, firmly, but with care. Supporting her more than leading her. Wren trailed along beside her, eyes roving.
“Let me show the ways out. Just in case.”
“In case of what?”
Three ignored the question.
“You saw the way we came in. There’s a button to the right of the ladder. Just press it, and you’re out.”
He led them back to the storage room, and it didn’t take Cass long to scan the whole thing. All available wall-space was taken up by the metal shelving, each heaped with a packrat’s nest of unsorted supplies. She glanced up at the ceiling, looking for any sign of a hatch or other entry, but found none.
“Right here,” Three said.
He stretched out his hand, fingers extended to form a triangle with the three longest, and pressed them against the wall, just above and beside where one of the shelves was braced. Cass saw what looked like tiny cracks in the cement wall, and realized that they were in fact markings, indicating invisible pressure plates where Three now pressed.
A whir and click sounded from below, and Three stepped back as a segment of the floor smoothly retracted, revealing another set of steep stairs, like the ones from the first entry.
“Down there, it’s a short corridor, then a branch, left and right. Both ways lead out. To the left is how I got in. It’ll take you up to the third floor of the building that’s above us now. The right goes out through the basement of the neighboring building.”
Cass nodded faintly. If she didn’t rest soon, she knew her body would shut down and force the issue. She swallowed hard, feeling a bilious gurgle in the back of her throat. In front of her, the floor panel slid back into place.
“You can open it?”
Cass nodded again.
“Show me.”
Her hands were trembling, impossible to hide now. Still, she ran her fingers across the plates, triggered the hatch.
“Good.”
“And here’s the other!” Wren called from behind.
Cass hadn’t even noticed him slip off. She and Three turned to find the boy just outside, crouching near the entry of the supply room. He was beaming, like he’d just found the most well-hidden Easter egg.
“Where does this one go?”
Three stepped out, and Cass followed. A panel in the wall to the right of the supply room entrance had disappeared, leaving behind a three-foot tall corridor that trailed off into darkness. Three knelt and peered into it. He grunted.
“I have no idea,” he answered, flatly.
It took a moment before Cass realized this was the first time Three had seen this route before.
“How’d you open it?”
Wren shrugged.
“It just kinda happened.”
“It opened itself?”
Wren shook his head.
“So you pressed something?”
The boy shook his head again.
“Then how’d you find it?”
Wren shrugged again, looked down to the floor, shrinking into himself as if he’d done something wrong. Cass moved to him, put a hand on his shoulders.
“It’s alright baby. It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine,” Three said gruffly, “if you can’t tell me how to close it again.”
“I’m sorry,” Wren said, voice quivering. “I just… I just…”
“Just what?” Three pressed.
“That’s enough,” Cass snapped.
“Felt it…” Wren finished, trailing off.
“Wren, it’s fine. You didn’t do anything wrong, sweetheart, OK? Why don’t you go sit on one of those beds and take your shoes off?”
She directed his shoulders with her hands and steered him gently towards the beds, and patted him on the bottom as he went. Then she turned back to Three, and lowered her voice.
“Listen,” she said, quietly but smoldering. “In case you haven’t figured it out by now, Wren’s very sensitive. Especially to how people talk to him. You watch what you say.”
Three just stared back at her without emotion, his dark eyes boring into hers. She saw the muscles in his jaw work, teeth clenching. But he didn’t reply. Just turned to look back down the corridor.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” he said finally. Then disappeared down into the half-height hallway.
Cass stood there with her hand on the wall, gathering herself.
“Mama?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“I can’t get my shoe off.”
She sighed to herself. So weary.
“Alright.”
Cass turned to face Wren, saw him with his right foot at an awkward angle, stuck in the upper part of his boot. Only a child could figure out how to get a foot stuck in shoes that were too big for him. She started to walk over to him, to help get him free.
Instead, everything went black.
Her first thought on waking was that she’d fallen onto a bed of coals. From hip to breast her right side seared with pain, though try as she might, she could not will herself away from it. Darkness coated her vision, an oily blackness filled with disease. Voices floated there, muted, distorted.
“…a blanket, water…”
The words were harsh, commanding. Cass felt the floor give way beneath her. Falling. Pain clinging like a web.
She landed in an arctic lake, subterranean, its blackness complete. Surrounded, drowning, but somehow able to breathe. Silence. Nothingness.