Nova perked up. "Really? You do?" He got to his feet by himself. "Take me there."
"I'm not sure you'll like how to get there."
A short time later, they stood in front of a giant building labeled Central Education Hub. "There's no way you brought me to a school where literally everyone goes."
"This is only the first step. Come on."
Nova trailed behind, looking at the branches leading off into their own sectors. The doors read Kindergarten, Primary, Secondary, and Higher Education.
Once they reached the end of the hallway, Oblivi tapped her card on a device, and a door opened onto a small waiting room. A secretary sat to the left behind some glass, a bench stood nearby, barely able to hold two people at once, and a metal door waited at the far end of the room.
Oblivi slid her card under the glass. The secretary looked it over. "Wait here for a bit."
As they waited, Nova asked, "Why are we in a school?"
"That's where the base is," Oblivi answered.
"But why a school? Why is it in the school?"
"It's not. It's under the school."
"Under?!" Nova stammered.
Oblivi explained. "Yeah, a while ago, before Grymsnow became the city of schools, it was more like a village. When Ogun stumbled upon it, he slashed most of the forests and made a massive clearing with his machete. Using the leftover wood, my ancestors built the older houses you'll see in this district."
"So this whole place used to be made of wood?"
"No. With all the trees cleared out, mudslides that needed minimal attention became natural disasters, and they took the lives of many."
"But that doesn't explain why or how there's an underground base."
Oblivi huffed. "I'm getting there, hold on." She cleared her throat. "After the forests were cut down, there was a great battle. A spirit of the forest was angered and twisted into a fiend. The people started hearing bells and laughter after dark. A few weeks of that drove the villagers to insanity from lack of sleep. They became paranoid, turning on their own kin. Ogun heard of the discord and had to step in and slay the fiend, but not before it caused an earthquake. It wasn't large, but it made the old school fall in on itself. After the fiend was defeated, my ancestors built a new school over the ruins. About three generations ago, they connected it back to the old one, touched it up, and began using it as a base." She stood, spotting the woman behind the glass waving her over. "At least, that's what I've heard."
She took her card back from the secretary just as the metal door swung open with a loud bang, revealing a shabby-looking lift. A chill crawled up Nova's back. Oblivi was already marching ahead, so he followed suit. Once they were inside, the door slowly crept back into place.
Oblivi pressed a button labeled "S." Nothing happened. She slammed her fist against it. Still nothing.
"Something wrong?" Nova asked.
"No," she insisted, pounding the button again and again until the lift creaked to life, then plummeted.
Nova screamed. His insides lifted, almost floating. He turned to Oblivi, but her face was blank, as if this were just another day. After twelve seconds, the lift began to slow, then lurched to an abrupt stop.
Nova's legs had turned to noodles. He staggered out into a slightly larger waiting room and dropped onto a bench, hardly holding himself together. Oblivi sat beside him. "Now we wait again."
Nova glanced over at her. "How were you so calm?"
"I wasn't." She rolled up her sleeve, revealing hills of goosebumps, every hair reaching for the sky. "I've been trying to work on a more stoic face. Like yours." She smiled.
Just then, another door hissed open to a dark hallway. Nova rose and peered down the corridor, a little unnerved. "So what now?"
"We go in," Oblivi replied.
They stepped into the darkness, and the door gradually shut behind them, the light fading with every inch. Nova pulled out his phone and switched on the flashlight; it barely clawed its way through the murk. "So how do you navigate this place?" he asked as they walked.
"I, uh… don't really know." She shrugged.
He sighed and pressed on. Their footsteps echoed faintly as they trekked deeper, and the silence filled Nova's mind with anxiety until he snapped at Oblivi. "Can you say something? This place is creeping me out!"
"This is why I told you I didn't want to come here. It's creepier than that story."
"That fiend was killed in the story, right?" Nova asked.
"I think."
Nova grabbed Oblivi by the shoulders and shook her. "OBLIVI, GIVE ME A REAL ANSWER FOR ONCE!"
Before she could respond, hysterical laughter rang out from somewhere up ahead. Both of them froze.
"Hey… what was that?" Nova whispered.
"I don't know."
The laughter trailed off as suddenly as it began, leaving behind an eerie quiet. Nova's grip loosened, and he let go of Oblivi. Yelling at her wasn't going to change anything, and neither was standing still. He exhaled, raised his flashlight, and kept walking with Oblivi close at his side.
At last, the beam landed on an ordinary door with a simple handle. Oblivi lunged for it without a moment's hesitation and threw it open, and light spilled into the hallway. The two hurried through into the sect's foyer.
"This is incredible." Nova gawked at the sight. "It's like looking at the past through a modern lens."
Four paths branched off the foyer, each leading to its own section: Housing, Research and Development, the Recreation Center, and Equipment.
"Nova, come here." Oblivi walked straight ahead down the path to the Recreation Center, where an assortment of unfamiliar tabletop games sat on a shelf. Nova read some of the titles: Slides and Stairs, Apologies, Cartel, One!, and Existence.
To the right of the shelf stood a TV hooked up to several odd-looking machines. Clattering drifted over from the kitchen adjacent to the entertainment area, where Oblivi had wandered off. The kitchen was massive, with a deluxe fridge and pantry and a custom island stretching through the middle of the floor plan.
"This place is incredible," he said.
"You said that already." Oblivi poured herself a large, sugary bowl of cereal. "Better make yourself something." She wandered over to the couch in front of the TV and plopped the bowl onto a coffee table.
"Aren't you gonna show me around more?" He pointed to the other sections of the base.
"Nah, you'll be fine by yourself." She rummaged through some boxes until she found one labeled The Queen and the Toad and slid it into the machine. After a few seconds, an image flickered onto the TV. Oblivi got comfortable with her cereal and settled in to watch.
Nova crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. "I thought you were scared to come down here?"
"I was, but you're here, and you're strong, so I know I'm safe." She flashed him a thumbs-up between bites.
Nova knew he had two choices: wait for Oblivi to finish her movie or explore on his own. Exploring meant silence, and silence meant thinking about Andy. So he dropped onto the couch beside her and watched, hoping the noise would be enough to forget.
It was. One movie turned into two, then three, then more than he could count.
A week later, bowls filled the sink, empty milk cartons piled up in the trash, and cereal boxes were stacked in the middle of the kitchen. Nova woke up groggy, looking around in a daze. Oblivi was asleep on a beanbag. He tried to stand, tripped over some tapes, and instead crawled over to shake her awake. "Oblivi, get up. Put on another."
Oblivi pushed him back down to the floor, where he promptly passed out again. When he woke a second time, he felt more rested than before and found Oblivi pacing in circles, biting the nail of her thumb.
"What's wrong?"
"Nova!" she hissed through her teeth. "Do you know what day it is?"
"I think it's the 30th."
Oblivi marched over and hauled him to his feet. "Come on, we gotta go."
"Why?"
"The surface has been unprotected for a week."
"Well, Chloe has that handled."
"And if Chloe finds us gallivanting, she'll kill us."
Oblivi tried to leave, but when she reached the foyer, Chloe was standing in the middle of it, emanating pure, unadulterated rage.
"Get over here. NOW!" Chloe seethed.
Nova ran out and stood next to Oblivi. Chloe was paler than usual, slouching, and blinking a second too long. "Where have you two been?"
Oblivi and Nova exchanged glances. "Down here," they admitted.
"So you've just been neglecting your responsibilities on the surface?" Chloe looked past them. "What were you doing down here? Nobody forced you to come up, but I noticed you were missing, and I've had to handle every single crime and complaint in this city myself."
"I'm sorry," Oblivi said, lowering her head. "It was my—"
"Don't." Chloe cut her off, then turned to Nova. "Oblivi isn't at fault here. It's you, as her leader."
Nova swallowed hard and said nothing. The words stung more because they were true.
She pushed past them, splitting herself into three additional clones. The original flopped onto the couch and dozed off while two others started cleaning. The last turned back to Nova and Oblivi. "Get your shit together."
As the clones cleaned, Nova noticed something moving in the Research and Development section out of the corner of his eye. When he turned his head, there was nothing there, so he ignored it.
Later that day, everything was back in place, organized, and spotless. Chloe's clones merged back into the original, one by one, by walking into her back.
"My team would agree that you two are slobs," Chloe said.
"Isn't your team just you?" Oblivi quipped.
"Yup."
She looked Nova up and down. "I couldn't help but notice you chose black." She examined his cloak, feeling each seam with her hands. "You copying me?"
"I just wanted something I could be stealthy in," he answered, meeting her eyes.
"Well, it looks presentable." Chloe let go of his cloak. "You two can't be hanging out here unless someone is answering the call for the city."
"Answer the call?" they asked.
"Defending the city and its citizens is your top priority." She walked toward the exit. "Also, whoever is eating all that bread is gonna get fat."
"We haven't been eating bread," Oblivi said.
Chloe stopped. "Look, don't lie to me. I found multiple empty bread bags in the trash."
"It's not a lie. We've only eaten cereal these past few days," Nova added.
Chloe paused, then turned back around. "Are you sure?"
"Mhm," they answered nervously.
Chloe's body began to shake as eight clones split away, running off in different directions while the original grabbed the other two mages. "I didn't think anybody would be able to get in here."
"What's going on?" Nova asked.
Chloe didn't answer. Instead, she led them to the foyer.
She looked around, checking behind her and the corners. She paced the space, mumbling to herself.
Hours went by as the Chloes searched every nook of every room in every section, until one of them returned. "I've found a locked door within the archives. Please follow me."
The mages followed the clone to the archive.
"Didn't know we had an archive?" Nova said.
"Yeah, this place is secure enough to store information without worrying about adversaries." Chloe corrected herself. "At least, I thought it was."
"If you geniuses weren't being vagrants to your own sect and maybe explored and studied, you wouldn't need to ask now, would you?" the clone added.
"Do you have to be an asshole all the time?" Nova groaned.
They stepped into the archive, and Nova's breath caught. Aisles of shelving stretched toward the back of the room until they faded into shadow, with no end in sight, and every shelf climbed straight up to the ceiling. The air smelled of old parchment and dust. Some of the books looked ready to crumble the moment someone touched them, their spines cracked and their pages gone brittle and brown.
The deeper they walked, the older everything became. The modern covers near the entrance gave way to cloth-bound volumes, then to leather, then to things that barely resembled books at all. Slabs of carved stone tablets leaned against binders crammed with loose pages. Scrolls sat tucked in racks like wine bottles, and the lowest shelves held rows of reels, cassettes, and discs, assortments of audio media he couldn't even name.
Minutes later, they found their way to the door. Oblivi jiggled the handle. It didn't budge. "This door isn't supposed to be locked."
"Wow, astute observation," Chloe spat, miffed.
Oblivi rolled her eyes. Feeling the tension, Nova asked, "So how do we normally get in?"
Chloe's clones traded a look, and Oblivi shrugged. None of them knew.