Liberty's Heirs

Chapter 23

The bunker was carved into the side of a hill.  "We believe this was the normal entrance," she said pointing at a pile of concrete with bits of rusted metal sticking out of the ground.  Her shiny brown hair glistened in the morning sun.  "Some kind of explosives collapsed it during the war.  We don't know who did it: the owners of the bunker or the robots.  Either way, we've never tried to dig it out.  The concrete is too thick."

Blion had slept till nearly noon and was well rested, but he had to try very hard to suppress a yawn as she talked.

They walked around to the other side of the hill where thick vegetation including a rather large oak tree had grown around another chunk of concrete that looked like a tunnel.  A metallic grating, half eaten away by rust, lied on the ground.  Its approximate size would probably have matched the concrete's interior. It must have originally been attached to it by the rusted metal anchors embedded in the concrete.  "This is a ventilation shaft.  The biggest of the six of them.  When my great-great grandmother found this place, this is how she got in.  It made our family rich, the supplies we found in there.  She and her husband bought the land from someone who didn't know what was on it.  They built the wall around the property out of concrete repurposed from the old roads.  There was a mountain of silver in there.  Before I was born, there was a lot more.  When I was a little girl, my father sent me in to bring some out to them.  My parents were too big to fit in the shaft, like I am now."  She looked down at her big hands.

"I've spent all the silver in the house.  I need someone I can trust to go in and get more so I can buy food at the market.  And clothing too."  She pointed at her mumu.  "It's a bed sheet, if you haven't guessed.  I don't get out much.  They don't treat me nice."

Blion nodded.  "If people could see what you looked like on the inside, they would treat you like a queen."

"Thanks, Blion.  You're sweet," she said, taking his hand in her furry one and caressing it.  "My cousin is the President.  He married into the house of Windsor, the family of the King of England.  But he won't share his money and I need help getting in the bunker.  Would you be willing to go in there for me?"

He soon found himself crawling on his belly through a narrow tunnel lined with concrete in the dark.  "At least if there's a spider in here, I won't have to see it," he muttered to himself.  Just then a spider web caught on his face. "Disgusting!" He pushed himself forward as fast as he could, hoping to put distance between himself and the spider that made it.  There was a dim light ahead.  He could see it  Just a little farther.

He felt something metallic obstructing the tunnel and could see it slightly in the dim light. Miss Boggens had warned him about it.  It was the remains of a robot. Blion was interested in seeing it but there was no opportunity.  Why hadn't anyone dragged it out of the way?

Leaving the robot ten or twenty paces behind in the shaft, he made it into the anteroom and landed on his hands.  It was awkward but necessary. The narrowness of the passage prevented his legs from emerging first and the bottom of the shaft emptied out at about the height of Blion's chest.  The room was dimly lit the light coming in from the adjacent room and by one working light fixture.  Though it was not bright enough to illuminate the room well, it the fixture was very small, like a pin-prick, and the light emitted was sharp enough to be grating on his dark adjusted eyes if he looked directly at it.  There were many similar fixtures in the ceiling but time had rendered them inoperative.