"So that's how it is!" Lisa exclaimed when after a fifteen minute long walk through a straight tunnel, mostly leading down, they arrived at the second junction. The path split three ways and there was a letter written in yellow paint next to each of them. Few minutes ago, when they got to the first junction, the tunnel split in two and neither thought much of it, but clearly there was some kind of labyrinth underground.
Sensing Lee's thoughts in the darkness, Lisa elaborated, "There were confusing schematics in the hotel and I didn't think much of it at the time. But apparently those were diagrams of the tunnel system here. From the looks of it, dear, you've copied the wrong papers."
"Tunnel system?" Watching his own memories, Lee obviously knew what followed, but back then he was torn whether they should leave at this point, "How big was it, at least from what you remember?"
"We're basically at the starting point." Lisa said with a sigh, "My guess is they have been exploring the place for quite a few days."
"Should we drop the whole thing?" Lee wondered.
"I guess …" Lisa sounded reluctant, "But after few junctions, paths seemed to join at one point before separating in a bunch of new ones again. What would you say if we go there, take a look and leave afterwards? We should have a little bit of time left, right?"
"We have to map the place ourselves though." Lee said, and grabbed a notebook and pen from his backpack, "If it is as you say, we might get lost here."
"Good thing they marked paths beforehand." Lisa's wide grin was evident even in the dark, "At the first junction they were marked with A and B. We took the A one."
"Mhm." Lee nodded, "Let's go along the C route here. We'll keep left at all times to not get lost."
After drinking few sips of water and they rushed forwards. Before getting to the place where all tunnels joined, they stumbled upon a cave-in and had to turn back, and then there was another one. The odd part was that according to Lisa there were no dead ends marked in the schematics at the hotel, but these paths were marked with a yellow letter like the rest. It was hard to tell how long ago the cave-ins happened, but there were no dust particles in the air so it shouldn't have been that recently.
And then there was a crevice. Right before the path entered a huge hall, much larger than the last one they found, there was a couple of yards wide crevice. One couldn't see the bottom of it, but neither had a wish to find out how deep it was.
After jumping over it they finally reached their goal. This hall similarly had murals on its walls, painted in the same fashion they saw previously, and a pile of equipment boxes stacked in the middle. From the side they entered, there were entrances to four other pathways and on the other side there were several tunnels leaving the hall as well. All of the tunnels were marked with letters in yellow paint and indicated that Smirnoff's group has long explored everything around here, and the two could only return with a bitter taste of disappointment.
The current endeavor was a long shot from the beginning and neither felt bad, but they were curious whether the discoverers had found something truly valuable. Well, something that one could put in a backpack, bring away and sell for a lot of money.
To their great surprise the pile of supplies didn't contain equipment archaeologists would normally bring. Besides dry rations and water, there were two boxes of Type 56's, the Chinese versions of the famous AK-47, several boxes of 7.62 ammo and a bag filled with hand grenades.
The two felt shivers run down their spines, realizing that for some reason Smirnoff's men were preparing for a small scale war rather than an exploration of an ancient ruin, and immediately decided to leave. No matter what treasures were hidden in the tunnel system, they surely weren't worth their lives.
Before leaving, Lee grabbed the bag with the most valuable items though. From what he could tell, it contained the next-gen night vision goggles. Even though they didn't need them, and their headlights and flashlights were enough, those items surely had adequate value to compensate for the travel expenses to Dunhuang and back.
At half way both Lee and Lisa were forced to realize they made a major miscalculation. As it turns out, to explore underground one didn't need the daylight. The rapidly approaching footsteps indicated that Smirnoff's men had arrived before the sunrise, found their disabled guards, and now were rushing in to find the perpetrators.
Without a second thought, the two darted back, turning off their headlights and purely on touch rushed towards the last hall. Neither said anything, but both knew their best chance was to hide in the labyrinth and try to sneak out later. Or maybe find another exit.
Sadly, as it turned out, running in the darkness was not as easy as it might seem. In addition, judging by the shouts behind them, it was clear the chasers had noticed them as well.
Watching the old memories, Lee felt his heartbeat accelerate as if he witnessed the event for the first time. He knew Smirnoff's men didn't manage to catch them, but the escape didn't go particularly well nevertheless.
Lisa slipped and fell in the crevice, but he somehow managed to grab her hand at the very last moment. He tried to pull her up, but unfortunately they were out of time.
While the two were struggling, the first pursuer arrived and shot at Lee point-blank. Fortunately the only casualty was the water bottle in his backpack, but the force from the impact was enough to throw him over the edge and the two fell down the crevice.
The free fall didn't last long, but they didn't hit the ground either. After a second or two, both felt their bodies suddenly touch the stone wall, and they begin to slide downwards for half a minute or so. It was fortunate enough neither broke or dislocated anything, and light bruises were the heaviest injuries.
The moment Lee's feet touched the solid ground, he immediately turned the headlight on again and glanced at Lisa's confused face, almost blinding her. Seeing she was more or less alright, he looked up and around, trying to figure out the next step.
The two did hear voices somewhere far above, indicating the pursuers haven't given up just yet, but then, purely based on instinct, Lee pulled Lisa to the side. Even now he didn't understand how he guessed it, but a couple seconds later he heard behind them distinct ding, ding, ding sounds, followed by several deafening explosions.
The blast wave threw them to the ground, but Lee forced himself to get up and pull Lisa away once again. His ears rang and he felt dizzy, but he was not willing to see if grenades would cause another cave-in, or take the risk and hope the guys upstairs wouldn't throw down more.
After running for a while, Lee felt Lisa slowing down and realized he was similarly out of breath. Both were quite fit, but the escape turned out to be so intense the psychological pressure tired them physically.
"Water?" Lee asked, "Do you still have some?"
"What?" Lisa was panting, but Lee's question slowly registered in her brain, "Ye, sure!"
She also turned on her headlight and then grabbed the water bottle from her backpack.
"Mine was shot!" Lee complained, inspecting his wet backpack, but actually heaved sigh of relief. It was too close – he could've been shot, they could've died from the fall or been blown up.
"Why the hell are you still carrying that?" After taking a small sip from the water bottle, the bag Lee stole caught Lisa's attention.
"I …" He didn't have a reasonable answer. In the current situation it probably would've been better if he had a bag with food, but having few night vision goggles underground might turn out not to be half bad.
He hugged her and they sat down, but after a brief moment of rest, Lee said, "We probably should use only one head light at a time, if any."
Lisa immediately guessed the meaning, and they both turned their headlights off. They were god knows how deep underground with very limited resources and, if they ever wanted to get out, they had to use them sparingly.
"We can't go back, at least not yet." Lee continued, "It's probably best to explore further. Maybe the path will lead somewhere."
"With how complicated the labyrinth up there was, it's likely for us to stumble upon one of the tunnels." Lisa said, "The problem is – we fell so deep! How are we going to get back up, even if we find one?"
"We'll figure something out." Lee said. There was no real answer to the question. He could only hope the path at the bottom of the crevice would at some point go up.
The problem was … it continued to go down, even after they walked for an hour.