Fortunately it was easy going, and this particular shaft was only a score of yards long. It ended at a maintenance walkway inside the Administrative Monolith, somewhere between D and E Levels. He pushed open another grille, climbed out and walked along the narrow catwalk until he reached the upper landing of a corkscrew staircase.
As quickly and as quietly as he could manage, he walked down the steps, the beam of his flashlight lighting the way. Pipes, conduits and ventilation ducts ran up and down the shaft all around the staircase. He went down, down, clinging to the handrail. The monolith’s levels could only be entered through the four Enclave complexes, and as far as anyone knew, the only way in or out of them was via the bank of public elevators. But his route led to one other exit, providing it hadn’t been discovered and sealed.
When he heard the muffled throb of machinery, he knew he was nearing the end of the staircase. The thin beam of his flashlight made a splash of white on a steel-braced lead door. He experienced a momentary disorientation. The door led to the manufacturing facility on E Level, and that appeared to be the only exit.
Recalling the path he and Kane had followed that day, he turned right at the foot of the staircase. He shone his flashlight up and down along the far wall. A gap was visible between a retaining wall and the foundation. It was barely large enough to admit him, and then only if he turned sideways.
He crab-walked into the gap, the beam from his light cutting through a gray mist of dust stirred up by his shuffling feet. Jagged edges caught at his coat and his stomach. He didn’t remember that happening the first time, and he realized, with a surge of annoyance, that he had probably become bulkier since then.
The narrow passage curved slightly, following the construction of the outer monolith wall. The ground beneath Grant’s feet suddenly fell away, and if he hadn’t been so tightly wedged, he would have fallen. His flashlight showed him earth-slanting downward beneath the foundations. Erosion had taken its toll in the years since he had last been here.
He continued inching along, bracing the toes of his boots against the opposing wall. He progressed only a few yards before chunks of rockcrete collapsed under the pressure of his feet Grant managed to keep hold of his flashlight when he dropped, thrashing, into darkness. He didn’t fall far, nor was it as much a fall as a feet-first slide. Dust and grit rose in choking clouds as his body plowed a trench through the slope of loose, ancient dirt.
Skidding to a slow stop on the seat of his pants, he shone the flashlight beam around, grunting in relief. He had reached his destination sooner than expected and by another method, but he had reached it. Cobaltville had been built upon the foundations of Vistaville, which had been built upon the ruins of an old predark military storage depot. Beneath the Enclave towers lay a chain of fuel cisterns, probably abandoned before the nukecaust. At one time, the ground around the Enclaves had been honeycombed with reinforced-concrete storage tanks. Even now, nearly two hundred years after skydark, the faint, acrid odor of gasoline still clung to the cistern walls.
Grant waited until he got his bearings before moving again. He and Kane had entered the cistern area by another way, and he swept his surroundings with the flashlight until he found what he was looking for, only a few dozen yards away.
A series of staple-shaped ladder rungs was embedded in the curving wall of the cistern, leading up to an overhead metal hatch. The ceiling of the tunnel bore a spiderweb pattern of cracks through which dirt dribbled down. In another few years, the Administrative Monolith would experience serious foundation problems. The notion of the inestimable tons of rockcrete pressing down from above invoked a claustrophobic reaction, and Grant stood up, quickly walking down the center of the cistern.
At the elliptical end of the storage tank, Grant leaned against the wall, looking up at the hatch. It was still sealed by a thick disk of iron. Grant scaled the rungs and pushed up on the metal plate, hoping it hadn’t been covered with stone or welded shut. He tried not to shove too hard, because he couldn’t guess who or what might lie immediately beyond.