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A6 Down in the Omni Tunnel by Bruce Meyer "Did you see Reproba back there?" Nick asked, red face contorted in anger.
Streams of people passed on their way to the Kyla. It was early evening, and hundreds packed into the row of shops and restaurants that were collectively named after that most prominent antique coffee shop. There they would meat with friends, eat, drink, and shop, all of them completely ignoring Joram and Nick.
Joram wasn't thinking about that, however. He had just seen a red-haired journalist named Brianna Buscador walking towards them in the midst of the crowd thronging in the opposite direction.
"Hi- hey," Joram said.
"Hello Joe," Brianna said back, smiling big as she swept past, her freckled face looking more like firecrackers.
"Joram!" Nick said.
"Yeah, what?"
"Did you see Reproba back there?" Nick repeated, emphasizing every syllable.
"Yeah."
"Remember what Riley said?"
"About what?"
"About the tunnels underneath the campus?"
"Yeah, what about them?"
Nick stopped and put his hands on his hips. "That's where all the omni- electric generators are. Don't you see, the Pravus are working on the generator. Stop it! You're just being a muon."
"Sure, alright, I believe you."
"So do you know what that means?"
"No, tell me."
"The tunnels, that's where they're putting the Gero generator also, don't you think?"
Moments later, Joram and Nick were running between and behind buildings, looking for omni tunnel access points.
"Hear's one," Nick called from behind Rutherford Hall.
"Why do they make these things so heavy?" Nick asked when he tried to lift the thick concrete cover out of the gound. It swung back on large steel hinges.
"So people like us can't get in," said Joram joining him. "Not everyone's big as you."
Nick strained with the cover, "You could help, you know." But before Joram could add his skinny hand, he had lifted it back to reveal a steel ladder going straight down. Joram stepped down to the first rung and then the second.
"Muons! You're stepping on my hand!"
"Sorry," Nick mumbled.
"Don't let that thing fall!"
"It's not that easy holding it up, you know."
After Joram had descended a few rungs, Nick followed, allowing the cover to close on top of him. Soon Joram's feet touched plywood, and he backed up so Nick could descend also.
"Did you think it was going to be so dark?"
"Didn't think," Joram replied, "but it's really dark. Don't think we'll find anything."
"Yeah."
"You should've left the cover off."
"Then somebody'd find us, wouldn't they?"
But it wasn't a somebody that found them. Joram and Nick were staring hard at a pair of fiery red eyes staring straight back at them from out of the darkness.
Joram felt the walls closing, and his breathing became tough. He has suffocating. Nick lunged back for the ladder, with Joram directly behind him, both fumbling upwards as fast as they could manage. Nick found the cover much easier to lift this time, both of them spilling out onto the ground. They allowed the cover to slam with a sound that must have been heard even inside the Kyla.
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