Having searched the entire place inside and out, he finds no one.
They’re either off island or… they’reunderneath.
Lachlan lifts his hand before the air conditioning grate and feels a light, cool breeze.HVAC doesn’t typically run on generators, but it is now because the main power is definitely out and the glassy mansion is still cool inside.
Kessler told Lachlan that the generators were in the sub-levels.If a storm hit, that’s where the adults might run to, but he just can’t fathom them leaving Jules and Roman behind.
The door that only opens with a fingerprint is heavyset and secure.
Lachlan kneels, studying the mechanism, but it’s hard to see in the dark, so he takes out the modified knife Jules gave him.On the side is a small dynamo lever.Lachlan works it with his thumb and a tight burst of green light spills across the lock.He quickly gleans what he needs to.
The print reader is surge-sensitive.
A current spike should fault it.
He shifts his grip to the insulated handle, arms the timer, and presses the blade tip to the print plate.After three seconds there’s a jolt, a little flash similar to a taser and then the reader beeps and the door unlocks.
Lachlan opens it quietly, keeps low and peers around.
He moves through shadows into a narrow passageway leading down.The air in here tastes sour.His ears detect a low vibrational whine.Lachlan pulls his gun, keeps it high as he descends.
What he wouldn’t give for backup.
The passageway leads to a metal spiral staircase, below which a few emergency lights illuminate what seems like a retrofitted bunker.There are voices below, and a different kind of light, pale blue and bright.
Lachlan pauses, briefly torn.
Jules is unconscious upstairs.Roman too.
But Savannah is down here, he just knows it.
And whatever the reason… it’s not good.
He heads down silently, taking each turn of the spiral with a healthy degree of wariness.The skeletal structure is designed to force intruders to bottleneck and expose themselves.
At the bottom, he sees the two bodyguards staring ahead, hands laced at the front.The base of the area is larger than he realised.Lachlan makes out the two panic rooms side by side, both doors naturally open, but opposite them is a room he can’t see into.The eerie blue glow emanates from there.
Lachlan could shoot both bodyguards in a pinch but it’s far from ideal, plus if he goes any lower, they’ll feel the vibrations of his steps on the metal spiral.
He retreats all the way back up and then, from above, hits the staircase hard.Lachlan flattens himself in shadows of the passageway, waiting as footfalls herald the rush of men to investigate.
They come up together which is so tactically stupid it almost feels like a gift.Lachlan clotheslines the first man straight across the throat before grappling the second, clamping a hand over his mouth as he chokes him unconscious.The other tries desperately to yell through his crushed airway, but a hit like that silences the body instantly.
Lachlan lets the unconscious body drop before turning back and striking the second man with precise force in the right place to shut him down cleanly.There’s technique to it, and Lachlan mastered it years ago.
He searches them quickly and finds no weapons.
‘Fucking useless,’ he mutters, heading swiftly back down the spiral.The blue glow is the source of the bad tasteandthe bad feeling, he knows it.
At the very bottom, boots lifting lightly to avoid scuffing on the concrete, Lachlan’s focus sweeps around, noting everything in the vicinity.
Boxed supplies, oxygen tanks, pipes.
It’s definitely old, has been upgraded, but they don’t build bunkers like this anymore.Itfeelsold too.Not in a good way.
Dead opposite are the twin safe rooms, the half-exposed interiors of which both gleam in faint, sickly cerulean from the room across.Lachlan inches closer to the door he can’t see on the other side, wide open though it is.
He peers around into the blue room, partially exposing himself.
