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.

.

The A.I. ghost was likely the one behind opening the door to the left of the one Valeriy had first tried.

"Ah, there it is. The freezer. I'll just put a stack of stuff in front to let you know."

"I can remember it.... Why is the room shaped like this?"

"We went a little crazy? It's all based on the Fibonacci spiral. If you put a bunch of them together, you can get a swirly flower pattern thing.... Ah, we cut the silicone tiles into shapes it makes."

That's when I saw the spirals crisscrossing each other in the flooring.

The stairs were in a room hidden behind another shelf door. Unnecessarily wide but also curving much like the garage. When we stepped on them, they started to move. Like an escalator. That got narrower as we went until we came up from a hole in the floor of a room with far too many windows.

One window.

That covered the entire wall.

Eight meters tall. An entire wall of glass. Not just simple flat glass. Compound curves forced it into the petal shapes. Much like the shelves in the room below.

I couldn't help but duck back under the floors. Rushing down a few steps to keep under. Flinching when Valeriy grabbed onto my hand.

And then the stairs stopped moving.

"Hey, we're safe here, Bucky. Windows are better than the stuff used at the D.C. safe house and any satellite imaging of this area is automatically edited to be quite wrong. So it's safe inside and safe to go outside too. Come on, I'll show you how it looks."

She gave a little tug. Pulling me along, right to the window. She pushed on the glass wall there, and it swung open a door to the outside.

I could feel the warm grass through the socks on my feet. The soil was soft to walk on.

A sloped clearing gave this spot just enough height to look over the surrounding trees. Gave a broad view of the mountain range.

Not a building in sight.

This was the perfect vantage point to see who was coming up.

The two dogs bounded down the slope, barking at each other and chasing a black bird.

When I turned to face the structure we came out of, all I saw was a massive mossy boulder. Blended right in. It even felt like a mossy boulder. Warm from the sun. Damp at the moss. As if it had been here when the mountain had formed. Except for the piece that swung out which revealed what was actually there.

I quickly ran to the other side to see what the landscape was there. With the pair of dogs trying to keep up.

"Stay in this clearing, Bucky! There are traps all over the place beyond that!" Valeriy yelled after me.

"Okay!"

A slender waterfall was about 1853 meters away from the north side of the fake boulder. I could see anyone coming down the cliff face.

If the satellites didn't work here... no one would see unless it was with human eyes...

If I sat on top of the boulder... I would have a view of everything around.

'...This place... I can protect it.'

"Shall we go back to Val?" I asked the dogs for some reason.

Ixie barked in response and Zephyr was already on his way to her.

I took the longer way, checking out the full perimeter.

"Satisfied that Soteria can hide you?" Valeriy questioned when she spotted me. A carefree smile back on her face.

I gave a nod.

"I'll show you the land around when I got the time to. If you really have to go beyond the clearing, take one of the dogs. They should know their way around? Might be able to keep you safe from the bullshit security."

My hand found hers again as we made our way back inside.

Valeriy and the dogs wiped their bare feet on the rug at the entrance. I slipped out of the socks while I had the chance before I could leave dirty footprints across the tiles.

"Eve, mind heating up the floors?"

"Toasty floors in two minutes."

"Thank you," she chirped back while pulling me down a curving hallway of shelves and binders. She tapped on the left shelf wall, away from the large room with the windows.

"That's the parents' room. Only been used once by Gramps, but don't tell the parents that. I'd say best don't go in there either? We just leave it be."

Where two curves met at a point, she pushed in a shelf, pulling me into another room. Much smaller than the main room, but far bigger than any of the rooms at the safe house.

"This is my brother's room. You can use it. He doesn't mind.... Well, that is if we can find the bloody bed...."

For a bedroom, there was no bed to be seen in the large space. Just the windows that faced the waterfall and followed the petal shape that was everywhere else. A single petal. Tables lined against the glass. The zigzagging walls were covered by shelves. Again filled with numbered binders.

"Are all the doors here shelves?" I asked, facing her to find the young woman prodding the ceiling with a wobbly four meter long stick.

"They weren't in the beginning? We just kept running out of room for notes and stuff, so we kept adding them. The doors are easy enough to find. They're all marked with a tiny glow in the dark spiral flower thingy. Just push there and the door should open.... Unless Eve's fucking with you.

"Oh, and before I forget, the bathroom is shared. We wanted bigger bedrooms, though everything ended up stupidly big anyways.... But this room's been set up for your privacy and Eve won't use the cameras when you're inside the bathroom."

"Got it," I said since she wouldn't see a nod. Still too busy poking at the ceiling.

This was a lot of room to myself. A room larger than any in the safe house. Far larger than any of the rooms I could remember with... with....

A room with a hole in the ceiling at the rate she's poking at it.

"What are you looking for in the ceiling?"

"The bed?"

"The bed's in the ceiling...."

"Mine is? I couldn't find it when Amber was here. We just share my bed. There's a... crawl space? Something like that up there."

'That explains why the ceiling here is two meters lower....'

"...Damn shit. I honestly have no clue where he hides his bed."

"I don't need the bed, Val."

"...Oh... right," she mumbled, fiddling with the ruler and tapping it against the heated carpet. Never twice on the same spot. Still searching.

"Anything else I should know about this place? Would something jump out if I open the wrong door?"

"If there's anything like that, Eve would probably lock it? But you should never go into the tunnels without me. We won't be able to find you again. I'd have better luck looking for you in the forest with all the traps, rock slides, wolves, mountain lions, bears – "

"Val!!!" the A.I. ghost screeched with such anger.

"Calm the fuck – oof!"

I wanted to run. To hide. Anything to get away from that voice demanding blood and pain.

But there was nowhere to go. She controlled the doors. She could lock us in or used them against us.

Impale.... Impale...? Tar...get?

"Bucky. Bucky? It's alright, 'kay? We're safe here. Come on, give me the ruler. Bucky, please let me have the ruler before you use it as a bloody javelin."

I let go at another tug, watching her throw it at the shelf and the metal stick just shrunk and stuck to the shelf.

'Mag-magnets...?'

"Val! Move it!!"

"Okay. Okay. Just stop yelling!" Valeriy's fingers latched around my wrist, pulling on it. "Bucky, I need you to let go of me. We're safe here. I just need to go take care of something, 'kay?"

"I can help," I quickly offered, hanging onto her when she tried shuffling out from under my leg.

"I don't want you a part of this." She scrambled to slip on those glasses of hers. "Ooh, this is a bloody fucking shit mess."

"Now!"

"Yup. Yup. Ass is on the move. Bucky, I'm sorry. Please just stay out of this."

Her hand tucked my hair behind my ear, resting against my cheek. An apology written clear across her features. From her smile to her eyebrows.

And then she was standing, almost running across the room. A shelf opened up for her. The angle hid what was on the other side of it.

"Valeriy...."

She didn't hear me.

Her hand tapping against the earbud. "Cass D'amour signing in. Taking over tactical. Anybody who wants blood speak up. The rest of you – "

With a slam, the door shut behind her. Not a single sound escaping into this room.

Leaving me alone.

With a pair of gigantic dogs.

'They're... They're going to kill somebody....'

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Author's Note:

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