Chapter 6 THE WALLS

Cairos did not answer the voice, he stayed perfectly still inside the hidden room while staring toward the dark shaft entrance. The emergency bulb above him flickered weakly again, washing the room in uneven yellow light before dimming once more. "You shouldn't have answered the door," the voice whispered, and it lingered inside the cramped space long after the voice stopped speaking. Cairos tightened his grip around the knife until his fingers hurt. His breathing sounded too loud and sharp now and the walls suddenly felt thinner than before.

"Who are you guys?" he asked finally but no response came, the other person had gone silent. Then somewhere deeper in the maintenance shafts, metal groaned softly making Cairos to swallow hard.

Outside the walls, radios crackled again. "Thermal sweep complete on level four," the voice said. "Negative movement," another voice said. "Continue downward," a third voice ordered. The voice sounded distorted through the pipes, but closer now, much closer. Cairos looked toward the shaft opening that darkness completely filled as nothing moved inside.

"You helped them find me?" Cairos asked quietly toward the darkness. Still no answer came, and that scared him more. The silence felt intentional.

Then suddenly scraping sound echoed, something shifted somewhere beyond the shaft corner. Cairos jerked backward instinctively, a figure, human height moved briefly inside the darkness, he was too fast to properly see and gone immediately. "What the fuck..." he whispered, the emergency bulb flickered harder overhead. The situation seemed to be draining him mentally.

Outside the room, heavy boots slammed against metal somewhere nearby. "Check the adjoining access channels," the voice ordered. Cairos froze instantly. A mechanical hum echoed faintly through the walls seconds later. Thermal scanners, the operatives were closer than before, much closer. His eyes darted around the tiny maintenance room desperately, there was nowhere left to hide except deeper inside the shaft system itself.

Then the whisper came again from the darkness. "Left side," the voice said softly. Cairos stared toward the tunnel entrance. "What?" he asked. "The right path collapsed three floors down," the whisper replied. The voice sounded too calm, like somebody who already knew the building perfectly. Cairos's stomach tightened immediately. "How do you know that?" he asked, and silence answered him again. "I do not believe you are that stupid to be asking that kind of question now," the voice said.

A loud metallic bang exploded nearby, suddenly sparks burst briefly through a vent outside the room. The operatives were cutting through something. "Movement detected near central maintenance," a voice said. "Seal the lower routes," another voice ordered. Cairos felt genuine panic rise into his throat now. They were closing the building around him piece by piece. The whisper returned quietly. "If you stay here, it's poof," the voice imitated a gun shot.

Cairos shut his eyes briefly, think, and think properly, none of this made sense, the voices knew him, Miss Alina who he really spoke to expected him, the recording sounded prepared, and now somebody inside the walls was helping him again. Or leading him somewhere, and that possibility made him hesitate. "What do you want from me?" he asked carefully. This time the voice answered immediately. "To survive first, then you will know," the voice said.

Cairos felt confused and stupid at the same time, he was wasting time and he cannot even comprehend what was happening. He believed the only reason the operatives were not there yet was as a result of their equipment and outfits, if not, he would have been dead meat of so he thought.

A sharp electronic chirp suddenly echoed outside the hidden room, then another exploded again, the thermal scanners had stopped moving. Cairos's pulse stumbled violently, and they found something.

"Possible heat signature behind this section," the voice said. They were too close, a flashlight beam suddenly cut through the thin vent beside him. Cairos immediately flattened himself against the wall while holding his breath. Boots stopped directly outside the hidden room, everywhere were quiet for several horrible seconds. The flashlight beam moved slowly across the vent again, Cairos could hear the operative breathing close enough to touch the wall separating them.

Then the voice said, "Negative. Pipe interference," and the flashlight disappeared and their boots moved again, Cairos almost collapsed from relief.

But the whispering voice spoke immediately afterward. "They'll come back," the voice said. The calmness in the voice unsettled threw him out of balance, he looked toward the shaft entrance again. "I can't even see you," he whispered. "You're not supposed to yet," the voice replied.

Another loud screech of metal tearing apart echoed through the walls nearby and the operatives were opening another maintenance route. Cairos finally made his decision, staying here was suicide. He crouched lower before crawling toward the shaft entrance carefully. Darkness swallowed him almost immediately as he entered the narrow passage again and he air inside felt colder and tighter now.

The whispering figure moved somewhere ahead of him, barely visible beyond the pipes and shadows not far away, just far enough away to remain unclear. Cairos crawled after the figure slowly. The shaft narrowed sharply several feet ahead, forcing him onto his stomach. Rust scraped against his elbows while dirty water soaked through his sleeves. Behind him, distant voices echoed again. "Section breach complete," the voice said. "Continue the sweep," another voice said.

The operatives were entering the walls. Cairos moved faster. The figure ahead turned a corner and disappeared again. "Wait," Cairos whispered urgently but no response came, only the sound of movement somewhere ahead.

The shaft suddenly opened into a vertical maintenance junction lined with old pipes and hanging electrical wires. A rusted ladder disappeared downward into darkness while another led upward toward a faint red emergency light. Cairos stopped moving, something about this place felt familiar, not remembered, but known. His eyes shifted instinctively toward the downward ladder.

And suddenly, a violent headache slammed into him. Cairos grabbed the side of the wall immediately as fragmented images of dark waters, someone screaming, blood running down a tunnel and a mirror flashed through his head, and then his own face staring back at him from the dark.

Cairos gasped sharply as the vision disappeared. "What the hell..." he said, his breathing became uneven again. Below him, somewhere deep beneath the building, metal clanged softly. Then came voices that were not of the operatives, it was of several people talking quietly far underground differently. Cairos slowly looked down the ladder disappearing into darkness.

It was the Southern tunnels, and the words from the recording returned instantly. 'Do not go near the southern tunnels.' Behind him, operatives entered the shaft system at last, flashlights swept through the darkness somewhere behind the walls. The whispering voice finally spoke again from somewhere below him. "You already know what's down here," the voice said. Then the red emergency light above the junction suddenly switched off, darkness swallowed everything.