Chapter 172
The clicking came again.
Sharp.
Measured.
Deliberate.
Marcus raised a closed fist, freezing every Atlas operator where they stood. The ancient barracks, silent only seconds earlier, suddenly felt far smaller than its weathered stone walls suggested. Dust drifted lazily through the pale glow of the soldiers’ covered flashlights while every man listened for another sound.
Click.
Click-click.
This time there was no mistake.
It came from beneath the floor.
Not outside.
Not the street.
Something occupied a lower level.
Tomas slowly knelt beside one of the cracked stone tiles. He pressed an ear against the cold surface, remaining perfectly still for nearly twenty seconds before looking back at Marcus.
"There are multiple."
"Distance?"
"Hard to tell."
He frowned.
"Maybe fifteen meters below."
Cole quietly unpacked a compact fiber-optic inspection camera while two riflemen secured the stairwell leading to the second floor. Rolf moved toward a narrow window overlooking the abandoned street, carefully checking whether the sounds had alerted nearby patrols.
Nothing.
The city continued exactly as before.
Far beyond the northern district, the steady rhythm of hundreds of pickaxes striking the mysterious black structure echoed through the cavern.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
The labor never stopped.
Marcus crouched beside Tomas.
"Could they have heard us?"
Tomas shook his head.
"If they did, they’d already be coming."
Cole finished assembling the inspection camera and examined the stone floor.
"There."
A narrow gap separated two cracked paving stones where centuries of settling had opened a space barely wide enough for the camera lens.
He slowly inserted the flexible cable.
The small monitor flickered to life.
At first...
Only darkness.
Cole adjusted the infrared settings.
A hidden chamber gradually emerged beneath the floor.
Massive stone beams supported the ceiling below. Ancient weapon racks had long since collapsed into piles of rotten timber, while rows of broken clay jars littered the ground. Thick fungal vines hung from every surface, creating pale curtains that swayed gently in the underground breeze.
Then movement appeared.
The monitor captured something crossing the far side of the chamber.
Not human.
Not Collector.
Marcus narrowed his eyes.
The figure remained cloaked in darkness before disappearing behind a collapsed pillar.
Cole slowly rotated the camera.
Nothing.
Only abandoned ruins once again.
"Play it back."
The engineer replayed the recording frame by frame.
The figure paused for less than half a second beneath the infrared camera.
Everyone leaned closer.
It stood upright.
Roughly human-sized.
Wrapped in dark cloth.
Its face remained hidden beneath a hood.
"What the hell..."
Rolf whispered.
"That wasn’t a Collector."
"No."
Marcus agreed.
"It wasn’t."
Before anyone could speculate further, another sound drifted upward from below.
Voices.
Not clicking.
Voices.
None of the Atlas soldiers understood the language, but it clearly belonged to humans.
Several people spoke quietly before footsteps echoed through the hidden chamber.
The hooded figure returned.
This time it carried a small oil lantern whose dim orange light illuminated more of the underground room.
The camera transmitted every detail.
The individual wore layered gray robes reinforced with leather patches. A curved knife rested at the waist while an old bronze key ring hung from a belt nearly hidden beneath the cloak.
Most surprising...
The person’s face was completely human.
Weathered.
Thin.
Perhaps fifty years old.
The man stopped beneath the camera’s position and slowly looked around the chamber before continuing toward another passage leading deeper underground.
Only after he disappeared did everyone release the breath they had unconsciously been holding.
Selvar looked utterly stunned.
"He’s... one of us."
Marcus remained focused on the monitor.
"Not exactly."
"What do you mean?"
"He isn’t chained."
That single observation changed everything.
The prisoners Atlas had watched throughout the day moved under constant supervision. This man walked freely beneath the city carrying keys and a weapon.
He wasn’t a captive.
Whether servant, collaborator, or something else entirely remained unknown.
Cole slowly withdrew the camera.
"So..."
Marcus finished the thought.
"The barracks aren’t abandoned."
He unfolded the city sketch across the ancient stone table.
"If there’s a basement beneath this building, there are probably more beneath the surrounding district."
Cole nodded.
"Military barracks usually had supply tunnels."
Marcus looked toward Selvar.
"Would ancient fortifications include underground passages?"
The Underroad leader thought for several seconds.
"I don’t know."
"You’ve never seen maps?"
"No."
He pointed toward the thick stone walls surrounding them.
"But every fortress needs storage."
Marcus smiled faintly.
"And storage needs access."
Exactly.
Barracks stored weapons, food, armor, and supplies. Those materials couldn’t be hauled through the main entrance every day during a siege. Hidden service corridors would have connected military buildings throughout the defensive district.
If those tunnels still existed...
Atlas might possess an unseen route through the buried city.
Tomas reached the same conclusion.
"If the Collectors don’t use them."
Marcus nodded.
"Which is exactly what we’re about to find out."
He reorganized the squad into smaller elements.
Rolf remained upstairs with two marksmen to observe the streets through narrow firing slits. Their mission remained simple: warn the team before any patrol approached.
Cole assembled a breaching kit but deliberately removed every explosive.
"No loud entries," Marcus reminded him.
The engineer grinned.
"I wasn’t planning on blowing up a thousand-year-old fortress."
"Good."
Marcus selected six operators for the reconnaissance team.
Tomas.
Cole.
Selvar.
Two riflemen.
And himself.
The remaining soldiers established overlapping security positions throughout the upper barracks.
"If we’re not back within forty-five minutes," Marcus said quietly, "you withdraw."
Rolf frowned.
"And leave you?"
"You report everything we’ve discovered."
Marcus met his eyes.
"That’s an order."
The veteran machine gunner reluctantly nodded.
The reconnaissance team gathered around the cracked floor where the mysterious human had disappeared moments earlier.
Cole tapped each stone carefully using the handle of his screwdriver.
Solid.
Solid.
Solid.
Hollow.
"There."
The sound changed noticeably beneath one section near the rear wall.
Everyone shifted closer.
Cole brushed away centuries of accumulated dust until faint carved lines emerged around a rectangular slab.
Marcus crouched beside him.
"A hatch."
"It was hidden."
Iron rings had once served as handles but had rusted almost completely away. Only faint circular impressions remained visible beneath the grime.
Cole produced a slim pry bar.
"This might make noise."
Marcus listened.
Nothing.
"Slowly."
The engineer carefully inserted the tool beneath one corner.
The stone resisted.
He applied slightly more pressure.
A faint grinding noise echoed through the barracks.
Everyone froze.
No response came from below.
Cole continued.
Millimeter by millimeter, the ancient hatch lifted from its seat until a narrow opening appeared beneath the edge.
Cold air escaped immediately.
Not stale.
Fresh.
Moving.
"There are open passages down there," Tomas whispered.
Marcus nodded.
Airflow meant interconnected tunnels.
Not a sealed basement.
Cole slowly lifted the slab just high enough for two soldiers to slide it aside together.
The opening revealed a narrow stone staircase descending into darkness.
Unlike the upper barracks...
These stairs showed recent use.
The dust had been disturbed.
Fresh footprints covered the first several steps.
Human footprints.
Marcus switched to night vision and peered downward.
The staircase descended approximately fifteen meters before turning sharply out of sight.
At the bottom...
Another faint click echoed upward.
Followed by human voices.
Then...
A Collector answered them.
Not aggressively.
Conversationally.
The reconnaissance team exchanged stunned looks.
Humans.
And Collectors.
Speaking to one another.
Marcus slowly looked back at Tomas.
"Our assumptions were wrong."
Tomas understood immediately.
The free humans beneath the city weren’t merely surviving alongside the Collectors.
They were working with them.
And Atlas had just discovered the first entrance into whatever alliance existed beneath the forgotten capital.
Marcus remained motionless at the top of the staircase, allowing the revelation to settle over the team before making another decision.
Humans and Collectors communicating peacefully shattered nearly every conclusion Atlas had drawn since entering the Underroad. Until now, every encounter suggested the creatures viewed humanity solely as prey or forced labor. Yet the voices drifting upward carried no panic, no screams, and no sounds of struggle. They spoke with the calm rhythm of individuals conducting ordinary business.
Marcus silently motioned everyone to extinguish the faint glow from their equipment.
Darkness immediately reclaimed the room.
Only their night-vision goggles painted the world in muted shades of green.
He slowly descended three steps before stopping at the first landing. The voices became clearer, though the unfamiliar language remained impossible to understand. Occasionally, a sharper series of Collector clicks interrupted the conversation, followed by another human reply. The exchange continued naturally, almost as if both species had developed their own shared method of communication over years of coexistence.
Selvar leaned closer until his lips nearly touched Marcus’s ear.
"They don’t sound afraid."
Marcus gave the slightest nod.
"No."
"They’re... talking."
"Which means this relationship didn’t begin yesterday."
If cooperation existed, it had likely been established long enough for routines, trust, and perhaps even dependence to form. That possibility disturbed Marcus more than discovering another Collector nest. Enemies behaved predictably. Collaborators did not. He had no idea whether these humans willingly served the creatures or simply believed cooperation offered the only path to survival beneath the earth.
Tomas carefully examined the worn stone steps beneath his boots.
"Commander."
Marcus crouched beside him.
The dust covering the staircase revealed far more than human footprints. Smaller Collector tracks overlapped them repeatedly, but neither set disturbed the other. They crossed in both directions without signs of pursuit or violence. At one point, a human footprint even partially covered an older Collector track, suggesting both species routinely shared the passage without conflict.
"This tunnel has regular traffic," Tomas whispered.
Marcus studied the impressions.
"Every day."
Cole quietly removed a small notebook from his vest and sketched the footprint patterns before taking careful measurements. The engineer had learned that tiny details often proved invaluable later. Even something as simple as the spacing between footprints could estimate how quickly people moved through the corridor or whether they routinely carried heavy loads.
Marcus looked once more into the darkness below.
The hidden tunnel represented far more than another route through the city.
It was the first crack in a mystery that had only continued growing since Atlas entered the buried capital.
Who were these free humans?
Why did they possess keys?
Why were they trusted enough to move through Collector territory without chains?
Most importantly...
What exactly waited at the bottom of those ancient stairs?
Marcus slowly raised two fingers.
Advance.
One careful step at a time, the reconnaissance team disappeared into the darkness beneath the forgotten barracks, unknowingly leaving behind the last place in the buried city that could still be considered safe.