“Yeah. I know a good spot there that should give us enough cover in case anyone’s on the lookout,” Darren explained, reminding Aiden that they weren’t here on a fun trip.
Marcus was searching for them. Yes, things had calmed down since the first few weeks after their escape, but one wrong step, one slip-up, could get them captured. And if that happened, then the legacy would be in danger now that both of them knew what and where it was.
“I… don’t think Marcus would ever expect me to come back here,” Darren said when the silence stretched as Aiden’s thoughts continued to spiral down. “But I’d rather be on the safe side, just in case.”
Aiden cut his gaze to Darren and nodded, the glasses he wasn’t used to seeing on the man distracting him for a moment. They looked good, complementing the shape of Darren’s face in a subtle yet effective way.
“Yeah, I agree,” he said belatedly and refocused on his tablet before his appreciation for Darren’s handsome features could make him hate himself even more than he already did.
Five minutes later, they had landed the shuttle and were trekking across the inhospitable terrain, fighting high weeds and prickly bush, tripping over stone and climbing over chucks of still-standing structures. Upon finally reaching the area of the labs, Aiden was panting and drenched in sweat despite the chilly May temperature. Things looked slightly different now that they were on the ground and didn’t have the aerial view, but they managed to identify the corridor they were after with the help of the blueprints on Aiden’s tablet and a holographic 3D map.
“Okay, this is where the elevator used to be,” Aiden said as he stopped in front of chunks of burned wall with steel bracing sticking out. He toed the rubble and glass clinked under his feet. “According to the plans, the emergency stairs were in an adjacent room, somewhere around here.”
“Yeah, I remember. I just need to…” Darren trailed off, wrinkling his nose as he slowly spun around and tried to orient himself.
Dragging his fingers through a partially intact section of rough wall, he paced ahead from where Aiden was standing near the metal bracing. A faraway look unfocused his eyes, stirring the indigo as he seemed to remember bits of his childhood and relive memories Aiden wanted to ask about but didn’t.
Or maybe couldn’t, because it wasn’t his place to ask.
And yet, Darren gave him the answers anyway.
“Sara and I weren’t allowed in the labs,” Darren said, nostalgia giving a mellowness to his tone, “but we used to sneak into this part of the palace in hopes of snatching an access card from one of the scientists so we could explore what was underground.”
Aiden balled his hands into fists as Darren stopped in front of a pile of rubble on the other end of the wall. “Did you succeed?” he asked now that he’d been given the opening, his curiosity budding along with that voice which beratedhim whenever he found himself wanting to understand Darren better.
“Stealing a card? Yes. Getting past the bio-scanners? Not quite, which resulted in both of us being grounded.” Darren grinned, his smile carrying the same fondness his voice was.
“Whose idea was it?” Aiden found himself ask, wanting to keep that dreamy expression on Darren’s face for as long as he could.
He really shouldn’t have cared about any of this, shouldn’t have asked either, maybe shouldn’t have agreed to come with Darren in the first place. But he simply couldn’t help it, holding his breath at each little thing Darren shared about his past. Those confessions and memories were a piece of the puzzle that made up who Darren was now, and Aiden realized as he watched Darren stare at the broken wall, that he wouldn’t be able to stop until he had them all.
“I think we both came up with it,” Darren said, thoughtful. His smile fell a heartbeat later and his eyes shifted from the rubble to something behind Aiden. “The stairs should be there. To the left of where you are standing.”
Aiden nodded and started shoving chucks of concrete out of the way, chasing away the truth he’d discovered about his obsession. Darren joined him and soon enough they found what they were looking for.
Compared to its surroundings, the area around the opening of the narrow passage looked more preserved, like someone had been here after the fire, cleaned it up and then scattered concrete and stone around it to make it blend in. And it did, unless you were paying attention or searching for it specifically like he and Darren were.
“Do you think this was Marcus’ doing?” Aiden posed as they slipped into the tunnel and turned the tablet’s flashlight on.
The soles of their boots produced echoing thuds as they slowly descended the steep stairs, though Aiden tried not to worry about that needlessly. They hadn’t encountered anyone so far, and besides, even if a patrol passed by, they wouldn’t be able to hear anything unless they were standing directly at the passage’s opening.
“Probably,” Darren tossed back, shrugging his wide shoulders.
“Yet hestillwent after you, which means he likely didn’t find anything here. Or…”
“Didn’t know what to look for,” Darren finished Aiden’s thought as they reached the end of the tunnel.
They’d passed two landings with a single door each, but Darren hadn’t even paused to inspect them, so whatever was hopefully waiting to be found, likely hid somewhere else. This last sublevel also had a reinforced door, but Darren ignored it too, as if it wasn’t even there. He crouched down and started tracing the rough stone wall to their right, squinting at it in concentration.
“What are you looking for?” Aiden asked, directing the light at the wall.
“There should be a… mechanism somewhere around here. It’s not easy to find and requires the right order of inputs…” Darren explained a little absent-mindedly, still focused on the stone.
It took about an hour of Darren feeling out some sort of a tracing pattern before the thick stone panel Aiden couldn’t even tell wasn’t part of the real wall slid up and revealed another, equally narrow stairway.
Darren flashed a quick smile, hooking a finger over his shoulder at the reinforced door. “Sublevel -3 is where the altenergy engine schematics and designs were kept in a securevault. It’s likely Marcus thought that the rest would be here too, so he’d have had no reason to look further.”
“That doesn’t mean he didn’t,” Aiden pointed out, following Darren down the stairs.
