Chapter 2: Into the Secret Lab

The freight elevator took me past the levels we'd already mapped. I walked down a few flights of stairs, my footsteps clanging in the dark. The bunkers were mapped on a big 3-D grid, so if you can imagine looking at a floor plan of a huge skyscraper, area K322 was in square K3 on the 22nd floor. The only difference between bunker seven and a skyscraper was that the whole thing was underground and the first floor was the one closest to the surface.

Someone else had started this level so I didn't have to worry when I opened the stairwell door. I strapped on my breathing mask and lit my miner's hat. Stepping off the stairs, I turned on my tape recorder and started looking in rooms. It was a great job if you liked talking to yourself. You'd announce the room your facing, carefully open the door, and then walk around the room describing its contents. Some areas were industrial spaces, some were offices, and others were residential areas. If there was anything like a generator or some other high-value salvage item, you would mark it in your notebook and move on. What wasn't marked for salvage was wrecked and sold for scrap. Even the stairs and floors were scrapped, leaving only an emergency exit from the bowels of the bunker.

K322 looked like a routine office area from the first few rooms I looked in. One of the steel doors was locked, not an unusual event, so I pulled my "Master key" from my belt and let myself in. The "key" was a small acetylene torch I used to cut the hinges off the steel doors. Once the hinges were cut, I flattened myself against the wall and let the door fall. No explosions, for what I was being paid, I'm no hero.

Behind the door was an office area. I made a quick sweep and then started a thorough search of the area. Inside were a small reception office, a file room, and an open area that had lots of electrical equipment. It was obviously a research lab. Others had been found in the bunker complex, but this one looked as if it had not been evacuated and cleaned out as the others had. Books were still on shelves and desks looked like their occupants would return from a coffee break at any moment. The only eerie thing was that everything was covered in a thick blanket of dust.