The Undergrounders: Volume I

16

"What is this," Zephyr asked in awe as he sat at the table, examining the documents with hungry eyes as he flipped through the pages.

Kanden placed two cups of tea in front of them before reclaiming his seat and shrugging. "I was hoping you could read the schematics and tell me," he confessed. He'd never been inclined for engineering, though he was positive he could follow a pictorial diagram with enough details. Anything beyond that was above his comprehension. "I found this in one of the storage lockers."

Zephyr scratched his nose before taking a sip from his tea. Then he set the cup near the edge of the table, away from all the papers, making Kanden do the same when he realized liquid and important documents weren't a good mix. The former remained quiet as he bit his tongue and squinted. Every now and then, he'd tilt his head or shuffle through the pages as if to determine something only he could understand. The extended quiet made Kanden squirm — curious to know what secrets this information held.

After a moment, Zephyr asked, "Are there any more pages? There's one missing."

In his excitement and haste to call Zephyr from the washroom, as well as the effort to help his friend walk to the table and finish making the tea, Kanden had forgotten to retrieve anything else from the locker. "Give me a minute," he said, pushing himself to his feet and returning to the storage area.

He didn't know much about his ancestors other than they were the original Founders. Little else had been carried through the generations, either because their histories had seemed unimportant or because it had somehow been lost after so much time Underground. Despite this, Kanden had no doubt one of them loved books. Books in multiple genres crammed much of the space, and Kanden had to pile everything on the floor to find every scrap of loose paper.

Gathering any document he could find, he brought them back to the table and scanned the contents with Zephyr.

"Who has this much time to read?" he asked after a moment, failing to catch a book he'd missed as it clattered to the ground with a thwap.

Zephyr chuckled as he took a sheaf for himself. "It's not like we have much else to do in our off-hours. I kind of wish they thought to smuggle porn in here though."

"Because you haven't seen enough of the human anatomy?" Kanden asked with an eye roll. Zephyr had such a one-track mind sometimes.

His friend shrugged. "Sometimes, you find yourself alone, and your hand wanders."

Too much information. "I don't."

"Yeah, well, you're a special exception," Zephyr retorted with a soft smile and crinkling eyes. "You're too good and pure for this world."

Was he serious or joking? Kanden never could differentiate intent behind words. If true, the sentiment was nice, and he dipped his head to hide his burning cheeks. Zephyr was supposed to be his friend and say nice things.

A soft thump of feet landing on the floor nearby caught Kanden's attention, making him cringe. So much for going through this unbothered. "What are you boys up to?" Father asked through a loud yawn as he trudged toward them and pulled up a chair.

His dark hair needed a good comb, standing on end in several directions. Tan scalp showed between the thinning roots, and the occasional strand of silver hair gleamed in the overhead lights. Without a sharpened razor, Father's beard had grown overnight, revealing more gray among the black. In this light and perhaps in an old novel, he might have been a feral creature; a monster in the shadows waiting to spring.

Kanden sighed and made room for the giant man at the small table. "We found some old plans for the Caverns. Have you seen these before?" Reluctantly, he took the original papers and pushed them toward Father, hoping for answers that didn't require hours of research.