"I'm sorry, dad." Maya lowers her head pouting and seems to be very sorry but mischievousness sparkles in her eyes. This girl is even better actress than my wife. I can't help chuckling: if we get out of this situation thanks to the twins his father won't have any kind of moral authority to scold them anymore. Gabriel shoots me an angry look and I shrug not giving a damn about his outraged face: I don't care how badly those children behave, my nephews and nieces are adorable.
"All right, okay, I give up..." Their dad looks at them with resignation. "If you cannot beat them, join them... as they say. Tell me Julian, how do we get out of here?"
"There's another staircase..." the boy assures with a soft voice, feeling a little self-conscious now that everyone's attention is focused on him: usually the twins operate in the shadows and they get nervous when all eyes are on them. "It goes from the hangar to the violet level, exactly the same as the emergency staircase behind the black doors."
"I've never heard about another staircase before," Rick answers. "And I've seen the ground plan of this facility hundreds of times."
"It's over there," Maya points at the end of the wall where her mother and Sarah are leaning on. There's a grey door with several yellow signs warning about the high voltage risk and electrical hazard and that only authorised personnel is allowed to go there, exactly the kind of warning that could catch the twins' attention.
"When you open the door there's a very small room," Julian explains. "Actually, it looks more like a closet, there's an electric panel board with screens and switches... and we never touched it," the boy emphasizes shooting a scared look at his father. "But on the other side there's a grey wall... or what it should be a grey wall. That was the thing that caught our eyes: instead of being made of concrete or brick it seemed to be plastic and it has some sort of lock that can be unlocked with one of those universal switch keys that electricians use. It happened that the key was hanging from a hook on the panel board and we tried to open the door: it leads to a narrow vertical tunnel, there's a spiral staircase that turns and turns... if you go up running from the violet level to the white one you get dizzy like on a carousel." The boy lets out a nervous giggle but her face turns serious again when his father raises an eyebrow. "That's how we managed to move around the bunker unnoticed... I'm so sorry dad..."
"Is there a staircase? It's labelled as a pipe for cables and ventilation in the facility plans." Rick seems furious because he never knew, concerning information he's a perfectionist and hates not to be updated constantly. "Electricians must've added it to the project at the last minute so they didn't have to walk back to the central hall every time they wanted to go to another level."
The Commander takes a deep breath while bullets are still flying behind our backs and the situation gets worse judging by the screams. Shaking his head he kneels down on the ground to make sure that he's looking at this children right into their eyes and frowns but keeping a faint smile on his lips.
"I love you more than life itself, you know that right?" The kids nod vigorously. "I need you to do something for me: you'll obey my orders and your mum's orders till we arrive to a safe place, without complaining and pointless pranks, is it clear?" They both nod again. "And your uncles and aunts' orders too," emphasizes their father. When these two are involved it's better to make sure that there's no legal vacuum they can find. The both nod firmly and hug their dad tight before he stands up again. I let go my wife's hand and take a step towards him; Adrian, Rick and Nat do the same while we watch what's happening on the other side of the Jeeps that are hiding us from view. "All right, that secret pipe seems to be the safest place right now. We're going to take our families inside and then what? We leave them there alone while we get into the bunker looking for supplies and killing zombies, then come back here, take these vehicles and fight our way through the tunnel? I don't consider it feasible."
