corridor feel like a cross between the Hoth Rebel Base and the Bat Cave.
“I see they’ve made some upgrades since I was last here,” Dad said.
“One or two,” said Rhys.
“And just how far under the mountain does this go?” I asked. Between the elevator descent and the hallway leading directly toward the mountain, we were definitely going to be under a lot of rock.
“Pretty deep,” Dad said. “But you don’t have anything to worry about. I personally supervised the excavation of these tunnels when this place was built. I made sure they would hold.”
It was a good thing I wasn’t claustrophobic, because just the idea of being literally under a mountain was already disturbing enough. Now that I started thinking about it, weren’t the Hawaiian Islands pretty much just a bunch of active volcanoes sticking out of the water? I had a brief vision of the floor crumbling and all of us plunging to a fiery death in a giant pool of bubbling lava.
What kind of protection would my Berserker powers give for lava? It would probably be best to never have to find out.
Maybe I was a little claustrophobic after all.
We walked down the corridor for at least a quarter mile. The temperature was quite cool, and I felt a slight breeze as we walked. The hallway ran straight without a single door or cross corridor until we reached a large metal door.
And when I say large, I mean large. Like bank-vault large, or underground-military-base large.
The massive steel door was already open, showing a width three feet thick with eight metal rods each six inches in diameter spaced down its side.
The door was obviously meant for security, but I couldn’t help wondering for a brief moment if it was meant to keep things out or lock them in?
I entered the room with no small amount of nervousness, following behind Rhys, Shing, and my Dad. None of them seemed even slightly worried. I, however, could hardly keep my hands from shaking. I clasped them in front of me to keep them still, but something about that posture made me feel like a powerless little girl, so I quickly let them go and held them stiffly at my sides.
Awkward was better than powerless, right?
The room itself was very large and open. The room was decorated in ultra-plush corporate chic. Everything was made of rich dark wood and soft leather. It was dominated on one end by a massive screen that took up most of the far wall. In front of the screen, on a raised platform, was a large podium with a microphone.
Facing the podium were three rows of what seemed to be individual pods or compartments. They were recessed down into the ground so you would have to step down several stairs to get into them. Each row had four of these pods split in half with two on one side of an aisle and two on the other. The rows were set at an angle from the front so they resembled three V’s pointed towards the back of the room.
Each of the twelve pods had a wide desk with a bunch of computers or some sort of technical communication equipment built into it. I couldn’t see much more than that from the back of the room.
We were clearly not the first people to arrive. I saw several people moving around and talking with each other. The room held the low buzz of multiple conversations going on at once.
All of that stopped momentarily when we walked into the room. The silence lasted for a long, awkward moment as everyone turned to look at us and then returned to their conversation.
A slender woman in her early thirties with shoulder-length blonde hair and bright blue eyes left the people she was speaking with and hurried over to us, a huge grin on her face. She looked expectantly at Shing.
Shing gave her a formal bow that she returned, but I could tell she was anxious to get through the formalities. She had a look of pent-up energy waiting to be released that reminded me of my best friend Amy when she had a good piece of news she was dying to tell me.
Shing turned to face us. “Allow me to
“I see they’ve made some upgrades since I was last here,” Dad said.
“One or two,” said Rhys.
“And just how far under the mountain does this go?” I asked. Between the elevator descent and the hallway leading directly toward the mountain, we were definitely going to be under a lot of rock.
“Pretty deep,” Dad said. “But you don’t have anything to worry about. I personally supervised the excavation of these tunnels when this place was built. I made sure they would hold.”
It was a good thing I wasn’t claustrophobic, because just the idea of being literally under a mountain was already disturbing enough. Now that I started thinking about it, weren’t the Hawaiian Islands pretty much just a bunch of active volcanoes sticking out of the water? I had a brief vision of the floor crumbling and all of us plunging to a fiery death in a giant pool of bubbling lava.
What kind of protection would my Berserker powers give for lava? It would probably be best to never have to find out.
Maybe I was a little claustrophobic after all.
We walked down the corridor for at least a quarter mile. The temperature was quite cool, and I felt a slight breeze as we walked. The hallway ran straight without a single door or cross corridor until we reached a large metal door.
And when I say large, I mean large. Like bank-vault large, or underground-military-base large.
The massive steel door was already open, showing a width three feet thick with eight metal rods each six inches in diameter spaced down its side.
The door was obviously meant for security, but I couldn’t help wondering for a brief moment if it was meant to keep things out or lock them in?
I entered the room with no small amount of nervousness, following behind Rhys, Shing, and my Dad. None of them seemed even slightly worried. I, however, could hardly keep my hands from shaking. I clasped them in front of me to keep them still, but something about that posture made me feel like a powerless little girl, so I quickly let them go and held them stiffly at my sides.
Awkward was better than powerless, right?
The room itself was very large and open. The room was decorated in ultra-plush corporate chic. Everything was made of rich dark wood and soft leather. It was dominated on one end by a massive screen that took up most of the far wall. In front of the screen, on a raised platform, was a large podium with a microphone.
Facing the podium were three rows of what seemed to be individual pods or compartments. They were recessed down into the ground so you would have to step down several stairs to get into them. Each row had four of these pods split in half with two on one side of an aisle and two on the other. The rows were set at an angle from the front so they resembled three V’s pointed towards the back of the room.
Each of the twelve pods had a wide desk with a bunch of computers or some sort of technical communication equipment built into it. I couldn’t see much more than that from the back of the room.
We were clearly not the first people to arrive. I saw several people moving around and talking with each other. The room held the low buzz of multiple conversations going on at once.
All of that stopped momentarily when we walked into the room. The silence lasted for a long, awkward moment as everyone turned to look at us and then returned to their conversation.
A slender woman in her early thirties with shoulder-length blonde hair and bright blue eyes left the people she was speaking with and hurried over to us, a huge grin on her face. She looked expectantly at Shing.
Shing gave her a formal bow that she returned, but I could tell she was anxious to get through the formalities. She had a look of pent-up energy waiting to be released that reminded me of my best friend Amy when she had a good piece of news she was dying to tell me.
Shing turned to face us. “Allow me to
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