The All-Rounder

Before she could stop him, the boy darted across to the roller door and hooked a hand under the bottom, trying to pull it up. The door must have been jammed, or heavier than he expected, because he struggled briefly as she rolled her eyes.

"We probably shouldn't be touching anything here," she told him as he crouched down, peering through the eighteen-inch gap at the bottom. Light reflected off white tiling as she crouched beside him, and he dropped flat to his stomach, commando-crawling under the gap.

"Jeremy!"

"It's fine," Jeremy told her as she hissed at him. "Hey look, 'Toni - body armour!"

He grabbed an old flak vest, holding it up for Antonia to see as she rolled her eyes. "It's just a padded vest. Put it down, it might be irradiated or covered in something dangerous."

Jeremy had already dropped the piece of clothing, coughing as he waved a hand in front of his face. "Yeah - dust. Hey, they got lockers—"

Antonia groaned as she shook her head, retreating from the door. Stupid Amber - she had wanted the four of them to stick together, but Amber had ideas about sneaking around the other farmhouse-turned-mini-fortress with her boyfriend, leaving Antonia to basically babysit the one guy in all of Teufort she could barely stand.

The torchlight slid across the marked walls as she listened to Jeremy banging around in the resupply room, probably trying to open one of the old lockers. There were enough stories from former freshman who'd camped in one of the many compounds outside the town's limits - most of the locked-up things couldn't be opened even by the most skilled locksmiths. Whatever had been kept under lock and key out here had remained that way for the last fifty years.

Nevertheless… Antonia, like every fourteen-year-old, entertained ideas that she might be clever enough, special enough to figure out the locks and codes that kept everything here so hidden away. Lightly tracing her fingers over the flywheel on the massive vault door, she studied the sign next to her, pointing towards the door with the word INTELLIGENCE emblazoned across it. Intelligence - like spies? What kind of intelligence could spies have hidden out here? And was it connected to the stories of the wars that had raged out here all those years ago?

"Now who's touching stuff?"

Antonia yelped, whipping around and throwing her torch at Jeremy as he dodged, laughing. His laughter was short-lived though, as the torch hit the ground with the sound of plastic cracking and the thing flickered into darkness.

"You broke my torch!"

Jeremy rolled his eyes as Antonia crossed the room and scooped the thing up. Under the light of Jeremy's torch they could see the bulb had shattered, and Antonia groaned as she smacked Jeremy with the useless thing.

"It's not my fault you threw it!" He winced as she caught him on the arm, rubbing the spot. "You could always just use your phone torch."

"Phone batteries drain weirdly fast around here," she reminded him. "And we might need it later."

"Need it for what?" Jeremy had moved over to the vault door, inspecting the flywheel. "There's no signal this far out. Hey, what do you think they stored in this thing?" he asked, testing the flywheel. Antonia rolled her eyes, joining him.

She shrugged, shaking her head. "I don't think you'll be able to open it—"

As she said it, Jeremy shoved his torch into her hands, grabbing the wheel with both of his own and, with a surprising amount of strength Antonia hadn't noticed in her classmate, managed to turn the wheel… a full inch.

"Wow, really been working at the gym," Antonia drawled. Jeremy shot her an annoyed look as he redoubled his grip and hauled on the wheel again. It budged another inch, and Antonia frowned at it. How was he moving it? One inch was a fluke, two was— even as she thought this, he grunted from the effort, managing to turn it another inch.

"Here, help me," Jeremy told her, grabbing the torch and dropping it - he caught it with his foot like a soccer ball, and then dropped it gently onto the floor so the bulb didn't break. Antonia hesitated, but… well, they were meant to bring something back as part of the dare, right? What if they got their hands on something nobody had ever grabbed before? Once again that idea that she might be the special one, the genius who uncovered the mystery of this place, flitted through her mind. Jeremy wasn't much of the book smarts type, but maybe he was brawny enough to be the helper she needed.

She grabbed the wheel and hauled on it. With both of them working at it, the wheel started moving more easily, metal behind the door's external plate groaning and shifting. Heavy clunks sounded as the door seemed to loosen, pulling away from the doorframe, and then—

Hinges that hadn't been used in fifty years squealed as the door swung, Jeremy and Antonia both diving out of the way. Almost like a breeze, pressurised air flowed out of the space beyond as Jeremy turned his torchlight on the room.

"Whoa…"

A small antechamber greeted them, but beyond that a long, white-walled tunnel angled downward and out of sight. Antonia clutched at Jeremy's sleeve, coughing at the taste of stale air that rose up from the space below, cooler than should be normal for a July night.

"You can't tell me nobody's been down there in fifty years," Jeremy told her, glancing at Antonia. She couldn't look away, studying the tunnel - the walls bore a scorch mark here and there, but otherwise it looked… untouched. "That wheel was way too easy to turn once we both had hands on it. You must be pretty strong," he added, starting towards the tunnel. "Wanna see where it goes?"

"Just a sec," Antonia darted over to the doorway that led out into the courtyard, grabbing a large chunk of metal that was something special at one point and hauling it over to the door, wedging it under the massive thing. "We don't want that door closing on us, do we?"

"Strong and smart," Jeremy shot her a half-grin, and Antonia smacked him over the back of the head.

"And way out of your league," she told him. "Don't forget - my grandpa comes from Teufort. We're probably related."

It was no secret that Jeremy's family was one of the largest in the town, and it was even crazier to Antonia to think that the Teufort group were only one half of the full family tree.

"Hey look, photos!" Jeremy moved towards the wall, the light landing on a large collection of old polaroids, all nailed or tacked to the wall. Squinting, Antonia studied those she could see in the light - they seemed to show the same collection of people, some dressed in a darker colour and others in a lighter colour, and most of them showed… guns.

"These must be the mercenaries that used to fight out here," she said, taking one off the wall. Even sealed away in an airtight space, the photos hadn't escaped the effects of time; most of the colour had leeched out, the infamous yellowing overtaking the blue tones, but they were still clear enough to see the expressions in the faces. Antonia stared at the image of a massive man holding what looked like a minigun, laughing as a much smaller man sat on his shoulders grinning, a baseball bat slung over one shoulder. They looked… happy, genuinely laughing at something outside the picture's view. A handwritten date in the bottom corner told her the photo was taken on June 12th, 1972.

She noticed the torch beam was shaking and looked at Jeremy, who was staring at the photo. As soon as he realised she was looking, he turned away, scanning the wall. The same two men appeared in a handful of the polaroids, along with others - a man with welding goggles and a hard hat, a guy in some sort of military helmet, a square-faced guy in a white labcoat with a smile that looked almost evil, and a few others.

"What's wrong?" Antonia asked - Jeremy rarely stayed quiet this long, and she could see his hands were still shaking as he stared at another picture of the smaller man, leaning against a hay bale and giving someone the finger-pistols gesture as he winked at them. Something about that smile looked… almost familiar.

"Let's keep going," Jeremy grabbed the photo off the wall, turning towards the tunnel. He paused, turning back to the wall and swiping another two photos as well, before starting down the tunnel.

"Jer?" Antonia jogged to catch up with him; he was setting a brisk pace, keeping his gaze firmly ahead. "Wait - did you recognise one of them?"

"Maybe. I don't know," he shook his head, pausing. "Um, but don't tell anybody, okay? I gotta… I gotta make sure I'm right, first."

"You? Fact-checking?" Antonia snorted as they rounded a second corner - this tunnel was like a spiral, sloping downwards as it turned, and she wondered how far down they would go. She grabbed his arm, forcing him to stop. "Hey, talk to me! What's wrong?"

Jeremy couldn't look her in the eyes, shaking his head as he pulled out of her grip. "I just… I think I recognise that guy. But I need better light to see, and I need the original pictures to compare it to."

"You think it's that long-lost uncle of yours?"

The story of why Jeremy's great-grandmother had moved to Teufort was something of a local legend. A mother looking for her missing son, finding a town trying to rebuild and settling in to make a home. Three of her other sons had settled here, too, and they were sort of pillars of the community, the same way the Kolvec sisters had been. No missing sons or brothers had ever shown up, but the two families were often touted alongside Sheriff Hood as "re-founders" of Teufort.

"Yes? No. I don't know," he groaned, pausing again and turning towards her. "Last I heard, Uncle Jacob filed an FOI against Mann Co, but all they could find was a burned file. If this is him," he looked down at the photos in his hands, "It might be the first real lead in the whole case. And look at the date," he added, pointing to one of the photos he'd grabbed. "1972, that's the year he disappeared, along with Aunt Yanna's brother."

He stared at the photos in his hand as Antonia let him mull over it for a few more moments, before shaking his head and stuffing the polaroids into his jacket pocket, continuing off again. Antonia sighed, digging out her phone - he was right, she could be using her phone torch.

One more turn in the tunnel - the torchlight landed on rock ahead, and Antonia briefly wondered if they might be entering some kind of cave - but Jeremy stepped out onto metal plate flooring and stared.

"Whoa!"

"What is it?" Antonia asked, following him and stopping dead, her breath catching in her chest as her eyes went wide.

Machinery lined the walls, long-dead terminals that presumably once held arrays of blinking lights and spinning tape wheels now stood silently in the darkness, the metal glimmering faintly as the light swept across them. Antonia realised her mouth was hanging open and closed it, straightening up as Jeremy moved forward, touching one of the panels.

"This stuff must've been here since the seventies, but it looks…"

His words trailed off as Antonia nodded, the silent agreement lost in the darkness. Her feet carried her forward as Jeremy grabbed a joystick at one of the terminals, wiggling it. This tech was all… way too advanced for the sixties. Or… was it? It was so easy to think of the sixties as a time without computers, but people did make it to the moon back then. Was this place just some sort of government facility, maybe?

Aside from the computer terminals, the room was pretty much empty, More of the natural rock formation marked another passageway leading around a small office, another RESUPPLY sign on the wall next to another roller door, and two more hallways branched off on the other side. Jeremy's torchlight passed over one of them as he peered around.

"What do you think's down there?"

"I don't know, but…" Antonia's arms were wrapping around her; the air down here was cold, like someone had left an air conditioner running. "Can we try to find somewhere that's not so cold?"

Jeremy glanced back, chuckling. "Should've thought to bring a jacket."

"It's summer."

"So? Come on - we'll check it out and then go topside again."

Antonia rolled her eyes as she trailed after him. Boys. "Okay, fine, one look and then we go back upstairs. We do have all night," she reminded him.

The hallway turned a corner and the torchlight permeated frosted glass windows just enough to show more arrays of computing terminals. At the far end, the corridor opened out into a large office that would have probably been stylish in its day - a sleek, white-painted desk stood in one corner, a single red briefcase laid on top, and steel girders stretched the length of the ceiling with lights hanging between them. Massive plate-glass windows overlooked another area, a vast underground cavern that Jeremy's torch barely illuminated, and glass doors led into what looked like another terminal room, full of computers again.

It would have been stylish and sleek, a sophisticated workspace - if not for the mechanical things littered around the room. In front of the glass doors stood a small tripod, a strange box-and-cylinder thing mounted on top that looked like it might be a camera. In the other corner, facing the desk, another tripod stood at the same height as Antonia, with two long arms that looked like machine guns - not that she was eager to get close enough to check them. In the far corner, right beside another entry corridor, a more flattened metal device looked like it had been tucked away, a pair of faintly-glowing red circles at either end of a thick metal arm that was balanced on a H-shaped base giving off a tiny amount of light.

"What do you think's in the briefcase?" Jeremy asked, moving towards the desk. Antonia shrugged, hugging herself again - Jeremy was standing directly in front of fun tripod thing, and something about this place no longer made her stare in amazement - it gave her the creeps.

"Let's just go back upstairs," she told him. "C'mon. We saw the room. Let's go."

Jeremy scoffed, inspecting the gun. "Are you kidding? This place is so cool! Do you think this thing still works?"

"I fucking hope not, 'cos it's pointed right at you!" Antonia snapped, suppressing a shiver. "Look, we can come back down later or after we meet up with Amber and Jordan. But this place is giving me major bad vibes so can we please go?"

Rolling his eyes, Jeremy turned back to the desk. "Fine," he dragged out the vowel as long as he could, grabbing the case's handle and pulling it towards himself - with considerable effort. "But I'm taking this thing. Damn, it's heavy."

"Yeah, well I'm not helping you haul it—"

Antonia didn't get to finish - no sooner had the case cleared the desk, hitting the ground with a loud thunk, than an alarm blared to life. Red lighting began flashing somewhere, bathing the room with intermittent flashes capturing tableaux of movement.

Antonia clutched at the doorway, the combination of light and sound disorienting her as she pressed her hands over her ears, squeezing her eyes shut. Jeremy was moving; last she saw, he was backing up, still dragging the case as more light, another noise joined the blaring alarm.

The lights on the weird barred contraption had flared to life and the arms were beginning to spin, whirring as they gathered speed, casting a strange glow above the device. The light pooled in the centre as all the air was sucked from the room, leaving Antonia gasping— blinding light erupted from the whirring device—

A gunshot rang out and Antonia screamed as something pinged off the wall next to her. Another gunshot and she was throwing herself behind the camera tripod, hitting the ground on her knees as she clung to the tripod's frame. Jeremy was screaming somewhere to her left but she couldn't see him in between all the flashing lights, the ringing alarm, and the third, deafening boom as a figure charged towards where they'd been standing - but the figure stopped short, and in between the flashes of light on the man's face Antonia saw his expression shift to shock.

The device was still whirring as the air was sucked from the room again. Another blinding flash erupted from the device and another pair of boots landed on the ground, a shotgun cocked as it swung around.

Antonia had only ever seen the guns worn by the local police, never had one aimed in her direction; now she was facing two.

Her ears were ringing as she clung to the tripod, and she could feel dampness on her cheeks, her chest heaving as her breaths came out in sobbing gasps - but she couldn't hear any of it. The flashing light gave her red-hued snapshots as the first of the pair grabbed Jeremy's arm, jamming a snub-nosed gun up under his jaw; voices muted as Antonia squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the next gunshot to ring out…

It never came.

The alarm was silenced, the lflashing light stopped and plunging them into darkness as the air was ripped from the room a third time. Antonia fell against the tripod, failing to keep her balance though from what little light there was, she could see the effect didn't seem to bother the two men. Another brilliant flash cast them into sharp relief for just a moment, that snub-nosed gun still jammed under Jeremy's jaw so hard his head was forced back.

"…just a kid, scout, put him down."

The second of the two men scooped up the torch Jeremy had dropped, turning it on Jeremy and the "scout" guy, who quickly pulled the gun away from the teenager's head, releasing his arm.

"They've cut the power, looks like; I'll go see what they've done." a thickly-accented Scottish voice slurred somewhere near Antonia, as heavy boots clumped down the hallway and out of the room. The first guy had grabbed Antonia's phone, sweeping the light over the room - Antonia curled in on herself, as if she might be able to hide behind the tripod if she made herself small enough.

"Somethin's wrong, Engie," the first one with the snub-nosed gun spoke with a heavy accent Antonia couldn't place - Brooklyn or Boston, one of the two. "I'm not pickin' up anything' on comms. Yo Doc? Spy? Anybody copy?"

Jeremy had pressed himself against the wall, sniffling quietly as he slid down and hugged his knees, watching the pair of men. The larger of the two, "Angie" or whatever he was called, turned back to Jeremy and he flinched, raising a hand to block out the light as he whimpered. Antonia covered her mouth to muffle her own shaky breaths, a lump in her chest making it hard to breathe as the larger man knelt in front of her classmate.

"Son, you're in a lot of trouble but it'll be a whole lot more if you don't tell us what you're doin' here."

Light landed on Antonia and she shrank back as she realised the guy still holding his gun had spotted her. "Got another one," he told Angie, moving closer as she tried to pull away. "Hey, it's okay. Don't be scared."

He holstered the gun, dropping to one knee and holding out a hand to her. Antonia stared at it - white cloth was wrapped around his hands, covering from his knuckles to his wrists like some kind of sports tape. Jeremy whimpered again, and she looked past the smaller guy to her classmate.

"Come on out, little missy; these sentries ain't gonna be much help if a fight breaks out," the second guy told her, his words gentle. The first guy didn't wait, taking her arm with a surprising gentleness and pulling her to her feet. She didn't try to resist, biting back another fearful sob and praying her knees didn't give out under her.

"You kids wanna tell me what you're doin' here?" The second guy asked. Jeremy had his face screwed up like he was still trying not to cry, sniffling.

"W-we didn't—" Antonia gasped as that lump in her chest forced it's way into her throat, and she failed to fight back another sob, failed to hold back the tears blurring her vision. Oh god, what had they gotten themselves into? "Nobody's b-been here for years—"

To her surprise, the smaller guy pulled her close, hugging her. Antonia didn't have a chance to be stunned by the gesture; it was like, even with the guns around, something in her knew this guy wasn't a bad person - and she broke down, sobbing into his shirt as he patted her on the back.

"You're okay," he told her gently. "We ain't gonna hurt ya."

"What the hell are kids doin' in 2Fort?" the other man asked, and she saw from the corner of her eye as he shook his head.

The whirring in the corner kicked off again, and though she tried to brace herself for it Antonia still hiccoughed when the air seemed to disappear once again. Another flash of light followed - but this time the ground trembled ever so slightly as the newest arrival stepped forth.

"Something not right," a deep, Russian-accented voice spoke into the darkness as Antonia clung to the smaller guy's shirt, instinctively recoiling from what she could only perceive of as a threat. "Spy is here, but not here."

"You okay?" The guy holding her asked as he pulled back. Antonia had managed to get the sobbing mostly under control, and wiped at her eyes as she nodded. She wasn't okay, but she didn't want to be hanging off a complete stranger - especially not one who had almost shot her classmate. He nodded, straightening up but kept a hand on her shoulder as he looked around the room again. He still had her phone, sweeping the bright LED torch over a massive, hulking figure.

"No spies in here, just a couple kids and two dead sentries," the second guy told them. A heavy clunk sounded somewhere nearby, and electricity hummed to life. Fluorescent lighting began to glow, slow at first in that way old tubes tended to do, and Antonia stared up at the men that had seemingly appeared from nowhere.

"Why are children here?"

The Russian man had narrowed his eyes as he looked at Antonia, steel-blue glare colder than the heart of a Siberian winter. "Spies?"

"I don't think spies would be screamin' at gunfire," the smaller one told him. Antonia stared at the two - they looked like— but… no, that couldn't be right—

"Aw hell! Scout, did you shoot this kid?"

She looked over as Jeremy yelped, the Texan man grabbing his arm - her stomach pitched as she recognised the dark stain of blood spreading down his sleeve, and clapped a hand to her mouth. "Scout" - the guy beside her - swore.

"I thought they was robots or somethin'! I didn't know it was a kid,"

"Lucky he is not dead, then," the Russian giant swatted Scout over the back of the head hard enough to make him stumble, as the Texan - Antonia had already forgotten his name - helped Jeremy over to the desk and pulled out a knife.

"Heavy, was Medic behind you?"

"Pyro first, then Doctor."

Jeremy winced as the Texan lifted up his arm, biting his lip as Antonia tried to shrug Scout's hand off her. He glanced down as she stepped away - he was a little more than a head taller than her, but had the slim build of a runner which at a glance put them in the same weight class. Of course, considering he was definitely still carrying a gun, she wasn't entertaining any ideas of fighting back. At least she wasn't crying anymore, even if her breaths were still shaky and there was still a lump in her throat.

"Had to cycle the temporary," the Scotsman called out as he returned. "Looks like the fuel's been siphoned from the backup. Primary's wiring's been chewed through."

"That don't happen overnight," the Texan told him, cutting away the sleeve on Jeremy's shirt. "Here, son, you keep the pressure on that, I'm gonna make a tourniquet."

Tourniquet. If they needed that— how bad was the wound? Antonia started to move but Scout's hand was on her shoulder again, keeping her in place and the glance he shot her was a warning look, though it softened and he managed an apologetic grimace.

"How'd ye pair get in?" the Scotsman asked, turning to Antonia. She had seen some scary things before, but something about the fact he was wearing what looked like grenades and had a patch covering one eye made this guy seem utterly terrifying. And— was that a grenade launcher he slung over his shoulder?

"Th-there's a gap in the fence," she told them, voice wavering as she looked between them - Jeremy was trying not to make a sound, but the wincing told her that it wasn't really a painless procedure. "It's all rusted, and some of the links broke apart."

"Ya didn't think to read the warnin' signs?" Scout asked her. She shook her head.

"Nobody's been out here for years," she looked at the Russian, who was frowning as he watched her. "We… we were here for a dare. All the freshman do it when school starts, you... you have to spend the night in one of the old compounds and bring something back to prove you did. Most people go out to the old dustbowl," she added.

"Kids'll be kids," Scout shrugged, looking back to the others. "I remember we had somethin' the same."

"Why come to warzone?" the Russian asked, looking back to where the Texan was saying something as Jeremy nodded, holding something in place as the man tied off the rough bandaging he''d made with the remnants of Jeremy's sleeve.

"This place hasn't had people around in…" she shrugged.

"Well that don't make sense," the Texan told her as he stepped back from Jeremy, wiping his bloodied hands on a rag tucked into a pocket. "We just came from here."

"Aye but it's night outside," the Scot spoke up. "Engie, the wires on the genny've been chewed, an' there's tha' much dust an' dirt built up…"

Antonia stared between the men as they fell silent.

"That's your teleporter," Scout nodded to the spinning thing in the corner. "I saw you place it only a couple hours ago."

Teleporter - no wonder they'd appeared out of nowhere. But how—?

"This room is exactly as I left it," the Texan, "Engie", moved over to the twin gun turret, running a hand over one of the flat surfaces and holding it up. "You don't get that much dust in a couple hours, even out here."

Jeremy and Antonia looked at each other as a heavy knot started to form in the pit of her stomach - and though he looked pale, she guessed Jeremy felt the same. These men were talking like they'd lost time, but... no, the ideas running through her head were too crazy. Even the Australians had never figured it out.

And yet...

"Show them the photos," she told Jeremy. He blinked at her, as if he didn't understand. "The photos from upstairs?" She reminded him. He nodded shakily, digging in the pocket of his hoodie and producing the polaroids. "We took them from the wall upstairs," she explained as he held them out to Engie. Slowly, he looked through them, rubbing his forehead under the helmet.

"I took this one only two weeks ago," he said, holding up the first - the Russian man and Scout. Scout moved forward, taking it and tilting it under the light, studying the print.

"It's aged a lot, more than I've ever seen one aged." He looked up at Antonia with wide eyes as the penny seemed to drop for him, too. "What year is it? Right now?"

The Scot laughed, slapping the Russian on the back. "Don't be daft, lad! And they call me the drunk," he gestured to Antonia. "It's nineteen seventy-two, o' course!"

His laughter didn't spread, and Antonia stared at him for a moment before looking away, sensing the other men staring at her. She opened her mouth as the weight in the room seemed to suddenly fall on her shoulders.

"It's 1972, right?" the Scot asked again, though he wasn't laughing this time, and there was a hint of nervousness in his voice. Antonia shook her head, but Jeremy spoke first.