I also tried to make out what was smoking there, but visibility was poor; everything blurred on the surveillance screen no matter how much we zoomed and adjusted clarity. On the main 55-inch cockpit screen, the image remained hazy, even when "Alice" switched the cameras to infrared and thermal vision modes. It was necessary to lower ATLAS further, but at a hundred meters altitude, visibility worsened due to the dense layer of aerosol dust. In the end, I decided to land on the surface.

  "Be careful!" Daniels warned me. "Volcanoes could have appeared even where they never existed before... Who knows what tectonic shifts occurred in Earth's depths after the nuclear explosions!"

  "Smoking like before a volcanic eruption," Sarah said.

  ATLAS smoothly lowered its four hydraulic landing struts about a hundred meters from where the wisp of smoke curled. The instrument panel lit up with a green "Landing" sign, and the vertical lift turbines shifted to holding mode.

  I forced myself to exit the cabin and, as soon as I stepped onto the surface, immediately realized I was on a mountaintop. The mountain consisted of stone and deep caves. "Before starting shelter construction, thorough surveys are always conducted, and construction only begins if no signs of volcanic activity are found," I reassured myself, walking toward the column of smoke. Even before reaching the massive boulder from which smoke seeped, I remembered that a forced ventilation shaft had been led from the shelter to the mountaintop.

  The wisp of smoke indeed turned out to be steam. There was no doubt: we were at one of the shelter's ventilation shafts. A huge grate about three meters in diameter, with a jammed fan inside, was crushed by an enormous piece of rock that had likely broken loose during the recent devastating earthquake. The grate was made of stainless steel, and on its edges was a clear stamp: "North Clark Security Underground Complex." Nearby, remnants of a yellow warning sign were visible: "VENTILATION SHAFT №3 — KEEP AWAY."

  When I returned to ATLAS's landing site, all passengers except, of course, Colonel Daniels, who remained in his seat, had already disembarked.

  "Everything's fine, we're in the right place. You can come and see for yourself it's not smoke but warm steam," I pointed toward the boulder. "And it's coming from the shelter through one of the ventilation tunnels..."

  "And what do we do next?" Hunter asked me in a tone as if speaking to a child.

  "Next, we need to move the rock blocking the tunnel entrance; if that fails—try to find other entrances..." I didn't want to raise their hopes, but it was hard to predict anything definite in this situation.

  Silently, we headed toward the rock. A sharp, cold wind began raising clouds of dust and ash. All my thoughts were focused on the shelter: either we get inside, or we die a slow, agonizing death from starvation over time... At the entrance, blocked by the rock and grate, we took turns inhaling the damp air coming from within. Each considered it their duty to confirm or question my assumptions. Hunter leaned heavily against the rock, surveyed the massive boulder, and shook his head.

  "Impossible to move it," Lieutenant Howard was the first to say gloomily.

  "Move it, we can't, you're right, but blow it up..." Hunter turned toward me. "Think, is there another entrance to the shelter?" he asked me.

  Sarah and I began descending the mountainside, choosing less dangerous and steep sections. I clearly remembered that four years ago, we drove to the shelter in a special military HMMWV M1151 armored vehicle on a dirt serpentine road. It started in the small town of Primm Springs, with houses covered in red tiles. Back then, Clark Mountain's summit seemed high, with steep rocky slopes descending into a deep gorge up to 300 meters wide. Though visibility was still poor, I was sure the gorge was clearly gone now. Slopes covered with aerosol compounds seemed smoothed over by the recent super-powerful magnitude-nine earthquake. Boulders that once blocked the path to the summit were now shattered, turned into dust and rubble. Back then, beech, oak, and walnut trees grew on the slopes; now, not even their roots were visible.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  Sarah and I descended lower and lower until we found ourselves in a small basin about 80 meters in diameter, beyond which elevation began again.

  "Up there, seems like a cave," she pointed to the opposite side.

  "Those were entrances to quarries where they mined stone for finishing work, but the shelter entrances are here, beneath us," I pointed to where once stood blast-proof metal gates with hydraulic drives.

  I realized what had happened here during the catastrophe. During construction, stone for interior work was cut directly from the mountainside using diamond saws. Terraces formed on the slopes, eventually filling with water. Lime and water formed a hard crust on the surface of sedimentation ponds, but water remained beneath. During the catastrophe, dams broke, and masses of water and rock rushed downward, sealing the gorge's entrances and exits so firmly that now even explosions wouldn't help reach them.

  "There's nothing more for us to do here," I briefly told Sarah my assumptions, and she obediently followed me back to the summit.

  The climb back took a long time. Underfoot, ash, soot, dust, and rubble shifted. Struggling to move our feet, helping each other in dangerous spots, we reached the top when it was already completely dark. From ATLAS's cargo hold, a power cable was stretched to the ventilation tunnel, and everyone except Colonel Daniels gathered around a 150-watt electric bulb. Hunter and Emily knelt, chipping at the rock with jackhammers taken from the emergency kit, digging something like a small shaft 40–50 cm deep into the rock.

  "Back?" I heard no joy in Hunter's voice.

  "Back." Sarah sank heavily onto a toolbox and stretched her legs.

  "You'll catch a cold," Emily noted. "Lieutenant Howard, please give the captain your spot."

  The lieutenant was lying in a small heated "Arctic-4" model tent on a pile of belongings but pretended not to hear.

  "GIVE the woman a place in the tent!"

  If Hunter had been healthy as before, he would undoubtedly have taught the lieutenant a lesson without discussion. Howard reluctantly got up and, leaning on his crutch, silently hobbled toward ATLAS.

  "And where did you find him?" Keila's voice held annoyance. She approached the tent, looked over the belongings, and pulled out a fur-lined jacket for Sarah.

  "Get up," she asked, and when Sarah sat up, slipped the jacket under her back, fur side up.

  Suddenly, Hunter staggered and fell face-first onto the rock he had just been fiercely chipping. I jumped up, grabbed his shoulders, but didn't have the strength to lift him; though weakened by illness, his sturdy, powerful body still weighed a lot—about 95 kg. Unliftable for me. I had to drag him to the tent where Sarah and the girls stood. Sarah immediately rose, unbuttoned his jacket, pressed her ear to his chest, then stood up and sighed heavily.

  "Bad, very bad," she said with her characteristic definitiveness. "You mustn't work anymore! You need to lie down!"

  A semblance of a smile flashed across Hunter's face.

  "Don't worry. I'll lie down soon enough, Doctor," he touched her hand gratefully. "Don't deprive me of life's last joys..."

  I approached the rock, and Emily showed me how to chip. The work was hard: first, the rock turned out to be very hard; second, you could only chip lying on your back. Stone chips fell on my face, got into my eyes. My ordeal continued until I heard Hunter's weak voice:

  "Probably enough," he crawled over, measured the indentation with his hand, and handed me something tied with a cord into a knot.

  "Put it deep inside and seal the hole well with rock."

  After doing as he said, I laid out a 15-meter length of safety fuse to where he lay.

  "And now, everyone move away," Hunter ordered and lit the fuse end with a lighter.

  A long time passed before a quiet, muffled explosion was heard. I expected dust and stones to fly from the boulder, but only a faint smoke appeared. Simultaneously with Hunter, I approached the rock and began feeling the indentation. Finding a small crack about 30 cm long in the upper part, I took a hammer, and after some time, managed to chip off a small piece from the resulting crack.

  "Where did you get the explosive?" I asked Hunter, handing him the fragment.

  "Gutted fifty cartridges," he was clearly disappointed with the results of his idea.

  Estimating in my head roughly how many cartridges remained (still about 4,000 in four crates), I understood these explosions would be ineffective, and Hunter, apparently, had reached the same conclusion.

  "Was there really no second, emergency exit to the summit?" he asked with frustration. "They couldn't have not foreseen such circumstances..."

  Lost in thought, I never remembered if I'd ever heard of an emergency exit from the shelter. Unable to recall, I shrugged hopelessly.

  "How much food do we have left?" I asked Emily, who had approached us; she and Keila had recently been feeding us, taking on the responsibility for our sustenance. Emily looked toward ATLAS and, apparently, began estimating in her head how much food we had left.

  "If we lock all supplies in the cargo hold—about two weeks," she said quietly after a while.

  "Why lock?" Hunter's surprised voice came from the darkness.

  Emily covered her face with her hands.

  "We noticed a while ago that food is disappearing," Keila, sitting next to Sarah, explained. "Two crates of canned meat are already gone... disappearing little by little, a few cans at a time."

  "Please don't think it's us," Emily said through tears.

  "Don't cry!" Hunter stroked the girl's head. "We'll find out who's doing it. Where's the access card to the cargo hold?"

  "Probably somewhere in the control cabin," I didn't even know the cargo hold door could be locked with a card and PIN code.

  "We need to hold a meeting and decide what to do next," I suggested, "and simultaneously raise the issue of the missing food..."

  "And there's very little water left," Emily added, sobbing. Eighteen canisters left for eight people.

  "And discuss the water issue," I began brushing dust off myself and, without waiting for others' agreement, headed toward ATLAS.