Callsign: Bishop (Erik Somers) (Chesspocalypse #5)

“Water,” Muhaddar replied. “What if they have water?”


Aziz looked back the way they had come. The desert stretched away in every direction; it was a flat, barren stretch of land dotted here and there by an occasional bush struggling to stay alive. Without help, they would not last another day.

Maybe the symbol meant nothing.

“Very well,” he said. “Open the door.”

Muhaddar pulled on the hatch, but it didn’t move. After a moment, he grunted, and Aziz could see the strain in his muscles. The door lifted up about an inch. Muhaddar was normally the stronger of the two, but a day spent wandering the desert with neither food nor water had made them both weak. Aziz stepped over to help, and together they lifted the steel plate up enough to reveal a metal ladder leading down into darkness.

“Hello?” Aziz yelled into the opening. “Is there anyone here? We need water.”

No answer.

Aziz looked at his friend, who nodded.

“Go,” Muhaddar said. “Whatever is down there is sure to be better than what is up here.”

Aziz agreed. He grabbed the rung of the ladder and started down. Muhaddar followed just after him.

The ladder descended about twenty-five feet below the door, and the lower they went, the cooler the air became. Aziz couldn’t contain a relieved sigh as his feet touched the floor of the building. He marveled at how wonderful the cool air felt on his skin. “I could stay here for a week,” he said.

“I may never leave,” Muhaddar replied.

Aziz looked around. They stood in the center of a large chamber filled with machines and computers. To his right stood a bank of monitors showing what he assumed to be other areas of the structure as well as a few that showed the area outside the entrance. Banks of electronics blinked and beeped all around him, and on the far wall, a set of steel doors led deeper into the building. Just to his left was a large map of the facility. It showed the entrance, as well as the room they were standing in, and more. The facility was much larger than he thought it would be, and he wondered who had built it here and how they did it. The map might have held a clue, but all the words were written in American. Everything was labeled, but he could not read any of it.

Then something on the map caught his eye. A small blue square with a picture of a fork and a spoon in the middle. He knew what that meant: food. And if there was food there, there would probably be water, as well.

“Aziz,” Muhaddar said, “Is that what I think it is?”

Aziz nodded. “It looks like a cafeteria or a break room.”

“I wonder if there is any food there,” Muhaddar said.

“Let’s find out.”

They walked further into the facility, waiting for someone to stop them and demand to know what they were doing there, but no one did. Here and there, Aziz spotted a few dark brown stains on the walls and floor, but he couldn’t identify them. He was just beginning to wonder what had happened to the people who built this place when Muhaddar stopped and pointed at a glass window.

“Look!” Muhaddar said.

Aziz looked through the glass into a small, square room lined with shelves and documents. Glass jars of every shape and size cluttered the shelves, although many were empty or broken. Some of the documents had been ripped from the wall, and more of the brown stains spotted the room. One of them, in the shape of a hand, sent a chill up his spine. He realized then what the brown stains were: blood. He wondered again what had happened to the people who built the place.

But Muhaddar did not seem to notice any of it. His attention was fixed on a large white refrigerator in the middle of the far wall.

“Do you think there is something to drink in there?” he asked.

Without waiting for an answer, Muhaddar pulled open the door to the room and ran to the refrigerator. On the front of the refrigerator door was painted the same triple moon symbol Aziz had seen on the outside of the building. What did it mean? He wished he could remember.

“Wait,” Aziz said. “I do not think it is safe.”

“Praise Allah!” Muhaddar shouted, ignoring him.

Inside the refrigerator were rows and rows of plastic bottles, each of them filled with clear, cold water. Muhaddar grabbed two and threw one to Aziz, and then he opened his and started gulping down the water so fast Aziz could hear him swallowing from ten feet away.

Aziz examined the bottle in his hands. The label was white, with black writing, but in the center was that same symbol.

He looked at it closely, not knowing what it meant but sure it was not good, especially given the many bloodstains all over the facility. But the bottle in his hand was so cold. Condensation had already started to form on the outside, and moisture dripped over his fingers. His dry, raw throat begged him to take a drink. He unscrewed the cap and brought the bottle to his lips.