Underground Read Free Page B

opposite us. Next to it, a couple of safety helmets hung from a rusty pipe stabbing out from the concrete.
    A hallway stretched out on either side of us. Nothing but darkness in both directions.
    â€˜This way,’ whispered Jordan, shifting off to our right.
    â€˜How do you know?’
    â€˜I don’t. But I came from the other way and it’s even more destroyed back there.’
    We kept moving, Jordan shining the torch in front of us, lighting up more of the same misshapen concrete and debris. In a few places, a metal beam or a bit of pipe stretched clear across the corridor, lodged into the walls on both sides.
    There were gaps in the walls too, with more rooms behind them, but most of the doors were half-buried in concrete. It was hard to tell whether this was an actual hallway we were walking down, or just a tunnel that had been cleared through all the rubble.
    â€˜Have you ever seen The Wizard of Oz?’ Jordan whispered.
    â€˜Huh?’ I said, almost tripping on a lump of concrete bulging up from the floor. ‘What, you think we should try clicking our heels together?’
    â€˜Georgia’s obsessed with it,’ said Jordan. ‘There’s this one scene that cracks her up every time. You know at the end, where Toto pulls back the curtain and they find out that the “Great and Powerful Oz” is really just some old guy pulling a bunch of levers? Georgia thinks it’s the funniest thing in the world.’
    â€˜Uh-huh,’ I said. She probably had a point, but I was too busy watching the path ahead to get what it was.
    Jordan gave me a look, like I was being difficult. ‘Somehow I don’t think this is quite what Mike and the others have in mind when they picture their “overseers”.’
    She froze. There was light up ahead. A dim, flickering glow, shining out from behind a door to our right. One of the few that still looked openable. Jordan switched off her torch and crept forward.
    As we got closer, I could hear noises coming from inside the room. Bubbling water and a low, steady humming sound. Why were they so familiar?
    Jordan paused at the door, listening. Then she reached out and pushed it open. I tensed, ready to run.
    â€˜Huh,’ said Jordan. ‘Anyone hungry?’
    It was a pantry. At least, it was now. The room looked like it used to be another lab or something, but now all the shelves and benches were piled up with food. Mike and his friends had definitely been keeping busy.
    Off to the side was the source of the light and the noise: rows of vegetables, suspended in plastic troughs filled with cloudy white liquid. Harsh lights beat down on them from above.
    A hydroponics bay. Like a scaled-down version of the massive one that secretly provided Phoenix with all its fresh food.
    â€˜This room isn’t as messed up as the others,’ Jordan said, moving through the shadows. ‘Whatever happened to this place, I think it happened back the way we came.’
    â€˜We should keep going,’ I said.
    â€˜Hang on.’ She scanned the wall ahead of her, then pulled a chocolate bar from one of the shelves. ‘You want one?’
    â€˜Are you serious? Jordan, we need to –’ I stopped in the doorway, watching her rip off the wrapper. Realising how hungry I was. ‘Actually – yes.’
    Jordan chucked over a Mars bar, stuffed a couple more into her back pocket, and followed me out the door. She flicked the torch back on and we continued up the hallway, wolfing down the chocolate as we went.
    After a few metres, the concrete tunnel straightened out into a proper hallway. The walls were still cracked and crumbling, but they were properly vertical now, and there was no more random junk poking out of them.
    It looked like Jordan was right. The further we walked, the more intact everything seemed to be, which hopefully meant we were getting closer to the place where we’d come in.
    â€˜Do you think it’s