**** Elysium 1986 ****

Harry and Abigail waited motionless outside behind the wide column for minutes, breathing shallowly to listen after the car with the yellow barrels had passed them. They might have even succumbed to the temptation to remove their helmets to hear better, had the radiation in the area not been alarmingly high.
“What do you think, should we go after them?” Abigail whispered. She was worried about Yuri. From their cover, they had at least been able to see that the people in the pickup truck passing them were armed. They probably wouldn’t hesitate for a second to shoot intruders on sight.
“At the risk of being wrong… it’s probably better to wait here for a while. We don’t know what’s going on back there, but we would definitely have heard the sounds of battle. If Yuri is hiding, we might escalate the situation if we just show up from behind,” Harry replied. He didn’t feel comfortable leaving his friend alone in a dangerous situation.
“Okay,” Abigail replied hesitantly. “We’ll wait.” Her tone indicated that she felt the same way. Some time after the engine stopped, they could finally hear the barrels being unloaded from the wagon. The men’s voices were muffled as they gave each other instructions on how and where best to stow the cargo. A short time later, there was a loud crash. Abigail jumped slightly and looked at Harry with wide eyes. He shook his head gently.
“That wasn’t a gunshot. Sounded more like a door slamming or a metal flap?” he replied, adding a mumbled “I hope”. At that moment, he froze in shock as he made out a moving black spot on the ceiling far behind them in the hallway.
“What is it?” Abigail asked in a choked voice, then turned in the direction Harry was facing. It was the direction they had come from. At first she couldn’t see anything and squinted her eyes. It wasn’t until the crawler moved slowly again, its body moving directly in front of one of the neon lights, blocking its light, that she could see it more clearly. Abigail tried to keep her breathing even and steady to suppress the rising fear and instinct to flee.
“It hasn’t spotted us yet,” Harry muttered. Then he slipped the radiation meter into one of his suit pockets and drew his sword from his belt with a silent movement. The movement caused him pain, the broken ribs complained. At least the medication he had taken a few hours ago was suppressing the worst of it. Abigail’s mind was racing. If she was forced to shoot now, their cover would be blown instantly. Here in this wide corridor, the sound of the gun would carry far and unhindered, just like the sound of the engine earlier. The crawler, on the other hand, remained silent. It was almost as if it was studying the light system with interest.
“Harry…?” Abigail whispered softly.
“That’s probably just a scout, the vanguard. As far as we know, they always come in groups, don’t they?” he replied.
“Yes,” she replied almost without a sound. They were both undecided about the wisdom of slowly creeping around the pillar behind which they had taken cover from the truck to better hide from the crawler. However, it would probably be able to pick up any movements or sounds more easily. Then suddenly an engine was started, rattling and humming from the direction Yuri had fled earlier. Abigail squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, noticing a few drops of sweat running down her nose from her forehead.
“Please don’t…” she forced out quietly. “Don’t look here, you bastard…” Harry expected an attack at any moment and only hoped that he would be able to move reasonably well in this suit. The crawler heard the sound of the engine and looked in the direction of the TRAP agents. For a moment, the light from the white neon lights on the ceiling reflected horribly in his jet-black pupils. Harry thought they locked eyes for a second, that the crawler had seen them clearly now. The sound of the engine came closer, grew louder. The crawler opened its mouth and let out a gurgling hiss. Instead of attacking, however, it tensed all its muscles, dropped from the ceiling, and landed on all fours. Then it turned in place and ran back down the hallway in the opposite direction.
“You were right, it must have been just a scout,” Abigail gasped, retreating with Harry even further behind the pillar to avoid the approaching headlights of the truck. The vehicle pulled out of the side entrance slowly, but then quickly picked up speed, plowing down the corridor in the direction it had come from. After about 100 meters, the truck made a right turn and disappeared from view. Moments later, they heard Yuri’s heavy footsteps marching briskly toward them from the side corridor.
“Quick, have to go after truck,” he declared curtly, waving to his comrades without slowing his pace.
“Ah, what luck, you’re all right,” Abigail rejoiced, some of the tension falling from her as she caught sight of him. “There’s probably some crawlers waiting for us back there…” she began to explain, pointing in the direction the crawler had disappeared.
“Quick, gotta go check out very end of that tunnel there,” Yuri returned hastily. Harry and Abigail glanced at each other and immediately took up his pursuit.
“What actually happened?” Harry asked.
“No time to explain, we have to get to hole. Got to take a look at this. Something is going on here. Maybe help us with solution of case?”, Yuri puffed and went into a light run.
“A hole is helping us?” Abigail muttered confusedly, trying to keep up with the two men and their longer legs. At least they were together again, which would greatly increase their chances of survival in the event of another crawler attack. At least she hoped so. The three of them walked past the other side entrances and Yuri explained to them in a few short sentences that there must be badly sealed nuclear waste in all of them. Based on that, Harry pulled the meter out of his pocket again. The closer they got to the curve where the truck had turned, the higher the radiation got. It spiked again. Just before the curve they stopped and ducked. The computer specialist looked back and took a deep breath when she was sure no one was following them. But there were sounds coming from ahead. Engines, voices, the noise of work… They turned cautiously further into the curve. Harry peered around the corner in a crouched position. Ahead was a sprawling cavern where he estimated about 40 people were engaged in various activities. A forklift brought more barrels to the back of the truck, which had stopped again. He saw men pumping what appeared to be radioactive waste from a rusty and dripping tank into more of these barrels. Several guards with comparatively heavy weapons were posted to secure this underground hall. He could also make out two guard dogs wearing only makeshift armor. Their heads were almost unprotected, their ears and mouths uncovered. Without their sense of smell and hearing, the animals would have been completely useless for their task. Harry knew what this meant. The animals were doomed to die; the radiation here was far too high. Even if they survived for a long time, they could not be brought back to the surface. They would not leave this place alive. Was *Anton* destined for the same fate? Was that what the dog kennels they had found at the entrance to the corridor were for? He let his eyes wander further. There were dried bloodstains on the floor in places, bullet holes in the walls. Above it all, a large round hole in the ceiling that must have gone straight up. An elevator platform, suspended from four thick steel cables, had been lowered to the floor through the hole, but the platform was empty. Most likely, the radioactive waste was brought down from there. On the elevator’s control panel was a sign that read *POWERS Generating Plant* with a symbol for high voltage in the lettering. Then his eyes fell on a large dumpster containing not only various pieces of scrap metal. The dumpster also contained several dead crawlers next to tattered and bloodied protective suits. It gave the impression that this place was regularly attacked by Crawler packs. Two more passages led out of this hall. But Harry could see no sign of where they might lead. This underground complex had to be much bigger than they had thought. Harry cautiously retreated to the bend with the other two and told them what he had seen. “*POWERS Generating Plant*, does that mean anything to you?” he asked after finishing his report.
“Yes,” confirmed Abigail, who was the only one of the three originally from Elysium and therefore naturally had the best local knowledge. “POWERS is the biggest power company in town, they run a huge nuclear plant in the industrial district. So we must have drifted pretty far south on our way. In fact, we’re probably right under the power plant?”
“Is it normal here to dump radioactive waste and fuel rods right under city?” Yuri interjected.
“No, of course not,” Abigail shook her head, slightly stunned. “I don’t know much about that company, except that they occasionally take up a whole page in the paper with their ads promoting safe and clean energy. It all looked pretty respectable when I flipped through it, as far as I can remember. Of course, I just skim the ads like everyone else, they’re not that exciting,” she shrugged.
“Clean energy…” Harry repeated, shaking his head as well. “They just dump their waste here, regardless of the consequences. There are nuclear power plants in Neo Tokyo and Fukomata, of course, but there the waste is taken to a common dump far away from any inhabited areas,” he explained. “My home is far from perfect, but at least the waste disposal works there.”
“I thought the same was true here,” Abigail replied.
“At least in Elysium is always room for a few bodies in dumpsters,” Yuri noted, alluding not only to the dead crawlers but also to his own disposal operation in Elysium’s North Quarter a few months ago. “And now?”
“There are two other corridors leading out of that big hall, but to get to them we’d have to march right through all those men. We won’t survive that. Let’s go back,” Harry suggested. “We may have witnessed a huge scandal here, but I’m not sure we’ve really made much progress with our actual mission in the crawler matter.” The others agreed. There wasn’t much more they could do here, so they made their way back as quietly as possible. Fortunately, the corridor was now empty. There was no sign of the crawler that had been frightened away by the engine noise earlier. Unimpeded, they could make their way back to the fork in the road that led to the unlit, natural cave.
“Wait a minute, guys,” Yuri brought the others to a halt. “While we here…”
“No,” Abigail said without waiting for his further explanation, trying to hide her fear.
“He’s right,” Harry said. “We should take a look at the unlit corridor while we’re here.” Her lips curled uncomfortably. The Crawler had probably disappeared into that very corridor and they’d be right on its heels. Probably right into the next pack.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Yuri spoke softly to the computer specialist. “Nothing will happen to you, we’re with you.”
“You go first,” she sighed. She knew the others were right. Otherwise they might miss important clues that could help them solve the case. They had no other clues anyway. She was beginning to wonder if this was really worth a luxury villa in the best part of town. Then Abigail remembered her little castle in the air, where she would stroll down the boardwalk at night in a pretty cocktail dress. The colorful lights, the music, the sound of the ocean in the background, a balmy breeze in her hair…. Maybe one day Viktor would come back to Elysium and find her there…. A smile crossed her face at the thought. What a beautiful fantasy.
“I always go first, is my job,” Yuri explained in a loud voice. “Hey baby owl, are you dreaming or what? Follow me now into dangerous creepy cave…!” Then he turned around, switched on his flashlight and stomped ahead. “Got a mighty hunger, will eat raw next crawler we meet.”
“What have I gotten myself into?” sighed Abigail, following the giant. Hadn’t he just tried to calm her down? It had almost worked. Almost.
“Still better than a boring office job,” Harry commented from behind, now carrying the radiation meter in his left hand and his drawn sword in his right. Abigail thought for a moment. How far her old life was behind her now.
“True…” she finally replied with a grin. This tunnel dragged on for quite a while, sloping slightly and taking them deeper and deeper into the ground. The floor gave the impression that many people had walked here in the past. Longer stalactites hanging from the ceiling had been cut off in the middle of the tunnel. Their pieces were often still scattered along the walls. Whoever had come through here had obviously not wanted to duck and weave all the time. Silently, the TRAP agents walked side by side, listening to the echoing sound of their footsteps and observing their surroundings as best they could in the darkness. However, fatigue, thirst and hunger were becoming a real problem. In their protective suits, all three of them had sweated profusely and dehydrated accordingly. Harry also noticed that the painkillers were starting to wear off, but he wasn’t complaining. His tongue was dry against the roof of his mouth, and the air in the suit was stale and stuffy. After about three-quarters of an hour of descent, Abigail finally stopped.
“That’s enough, boys, let’s go back,” she said resignedly. “We’re all tired. If we run into those things again, we won’t even have the strength to fight back.” Yuri, who had already taken a few more steps, shook his head. He pointed in the direction of his flashlight’s beam and took a deep breath.
“Look ahead,” he said calmly. The others came closer and saw what he had discovered.
“Those are… Steps?” Harry remarked, slightly incredulous. He had somehow stopped expecting to find a man-made area down here after the long walk through the natural tunnel. Abigail gasped. Despite her exhaustion, her curiosity had been reawakened.
“Okay, we need to take a quick look at this,” she muttered, walking over to Yuri and pushing him in front of her toward the stairs. “You first, big guy,” she instructed. Yuri just grinned, let himself be pushed for a moment, and then resumed his stride. Harry took a deep breath as well, summoning the last of his strength to follow them.

The stairs went down very steeply in a wide left turn and were wide enough for two people to walk side by side without difficulty. However, the steps were also somewhat damp and slippery, so they had to be very careful of their steps as they continued down. After a few minutes, they reached an archway at the end of the stairs made of intricately carved stones that opened up a view of a vast area. The three comrades stopped abruptly, as if rooted to the spot, when they saw what lay before them so far underground. No one could have expected this sight. No one could have prepared them for this discovery. What they saw would change everything.

Categorized as: Novel 4 (EN) | Novel Chapter (EN)

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