A quiet sound of an opening door came from the hallway; someone had entered. Soon, the slender figure of a woman familiar and yet unfamiliar to me appeared in the study doorway. She was wearing a colorful, short robe that barely closed over her chest (those who stocked clothing for the shelter had tried to make it uniform for an average build and couldn't have foreseen a woman with such curves appearing in the shelter). I was used to always seeing Sarah in a military warm jacket, scarf, and boots, and now I was seeing her without all that for the first time. In the weak lighting, her hair had always seemed black to me. Now I saw that her hair was a dark chestnut shade, falling in long waves to her shoulders. She was very beautiful.

  "Did something happen?" I asked, rising anxiously to meet her.

  She was embarrassed.

  "Everything's fine. It's just... I can't sleep for some reason..."

  "Sit down," I pointed to a chair, and she, always so strong and independent, to my surprise obeyed immediately, gracefully sitting in the chair opposite and looking at me questioningly.

  My heart pounded anxiously. All this time we had been inseparable, but I had never once thought of her as a woman. Though, to be honest, when I saw her for the first time, the thought had crossed my mind that such a perfect woman needed an equally perfect man. Although, honestly, I never felt inadequate myself: height, weight, appearance, and physical attributes had always been normal for me. But that was normal among ordinary men, whereas Sarah was an exception. Her beauty and physical build of ideal form clearly didn't match my own merits.

  "Can you tell me, Ork, what will become of us?" Today, for the first time, she called me by my name.

  "Would you like a glass of cognac or wine?" I asked and, not waiting for her consent, went to the bar, took another glass and the already opened bottle, then returned, sat down next to her, and filled them.

  Sarah didn't fuss and immediately took a sip, then gracefully rose, took a chocolate bar, broke it in half, and handed me one half.

  "You know what our ancestors said about the future?" I bit off some chocolate, stretched my legs under the table. "They claimed the future is a time about which we know nothing, but we harbor the illusion that we can change something in it..."

  "Yes, but they didn't live in a shelter where any minute could be their last. The assertions of ancestors don't suit us now..."

  I nodded my head in agreement and refilled the glasses.

  "I'm very grateful that you remembered me," I said and, without excessive flattery, simply stroked her warm shoulder in a friendly manner. "Let's drink instead to our future generations—I still hope life will be reborn on Earth—being like you in every way."

  "Thank you," she drank the cognac, bit off a piece of chocolate. "You're intelligent, Ork, I understood that immediately." Out of habit, she touched her temples with her long fingers. "Tell me, if you know, why did all this happen?"

  "Because, Sarah, we have been preparing ourselves for such an end for many long years." Her eyes widened in surprise. "We lived in constant expectation of this event and gradually became accustomed to it. Art, literature, video games, films constantly fueled this theme. And numerous programs and reports telling us about our wonderful shelters where good people would take refuge, and bad guys would perish, and finally, an ideal world of only good people would come to Earth, accustomed us to this thought and this end... It was an obsession, a self-soothing that accompanied us everywhere..., and we ourselves wanted it all to happen sooner..."

  "That really is true," she said in a quiet voice, not her own. "This obsession..."

  And at that moment, the shelter floor suddenly shuddered; something lifted us up and set us down again. The heavy desk creaked and swayed, the glasses on it rang and swayed, the cognac bottle fell to the floor and shattered. Something in the shelter clanged, falling from its place...

  We immediately jumped up but, unable to keep our feet, fell back into the chairs. Out of fear, Sarah buried her head in my shoulder.

  The lights flickered and went out but, fortunately, not for long. Apparently, emergency systems kicked in. They came back on and now only blinked with each jolt.

  "What is it?"

  "Another earthquake. Don't be afraid. The shelter is built reliably."

  A nine-point earthquake was always considered the most destructive. Even reinforced concrete structures couldn't withstand such tremors. But now something unimaginable was happening: the floor under our feet tilted at a thirty-degree angle, the chairs we sat in rolled from wall to wall. In the kitchen, dishes fell to the floor, beds, tables, chairs shifted from their places. But the shelter truly proved strong.

  After about five minutes, when we came to our senses, we didn't even find any cracks anywhere. The earthquake stopped, but the planet groaned for a long time. Something beneath our feet gurgled, trembled, shook as if in a fever, emitting soul-rending cries...

  "We need to check if the others are okay," Sarah grew anxious as soon as the tremors stopped.

  We ran to the outer door—but it wouldn't open with the entered unlock code.

  "It's jammed," I glanced at the dial of my analog watch. "It's around eleven at night. We'll have to wait until morning. In the morning, they'll find us and help us get out of here..."

  "But maybe someone needs urgent medical attention?" Sarah timidly objected.

  This uncharacteristic timidity of hers decided everything...

  I woke up at my long-standing habit of getting up at five in the morning. I opened my eyes and began to recall the events of the past night. Then I looked at the other half of the bed and, seeing Sarah sleeping peacefully, was surprised myself by what had happened between us.

  "The earthquake is to blame for everything!" I told myself, as if making excuses. Quickly getting up, I gathered the clothes scattered around the room and went to the adjacent room to get dressed.

  I approached the outer doors again and tried to press hard with my shoulder—it was useless. In the upper part of the doorway ran a ventilation shaft. A decorative transom matching the apartment's interior had been specially made for it.

  An idea came instantly, and I began looking for something to stand on. I peeked into the living room—Sarah was already combing her hair before the mirror there.

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  I was at a loss, not knowing how to behave after last night. She looked back—my indecision touched her. She hurried over to me, smiling sweetly with a slightly mischievous reproach.

  "Forgive me," I whispered, lowering my head onto her warm shoulder.

  Her hand slid over the back of my head, her fingers sank into my hair. A gentle push made me bend my face to her chest... We were already ready to repeat our recent recklessness when suddenly this moment of our unity was interrupted by the smell of burning. We stepped back from each other and looked around in surprise, searching for the source of the smoke. Finally, after circling the room, we understood that the smoke was coming from under the transom.

  We sprang into action. We carried the table from the living room and placed it under the ventilation shaft. I climbed onto it and began tugging at the transom. In one spot, the welding gave way, and thick black smoke poured through the resulting crack from the corridor.

  "Something's happened. There's a fire somewhere."

  Sarah also got on the table and peered into the crack. Grabbing the transom, we both together pulled it with such force that a corner bent, creaked, and the transom along with its frame shifted from its place.

  In one of the cabinets in the bathroom, I found a crowbar. When the transom, torn off with the crowbar, crashed to the floor, I stuck my head into the corridor and was horrified: the corridor from end to end was filled with black, acrid smoke. Not far down the corridor, from the wide-open doors of the fifth apartment, tongues of flame were creeping out, already licking the corridor ceiling.

  "Well, it seems that's it. We'll suffocate in this trap..." Sarah said sadly, convinced of the misfortune that had occurred.

  In moments of extreme danger, I always become absolutely calm and collected. So it happened this time. I tried to recall the shelter's construction layout. There should be cabinets with emergency fire extinguishers in the corridor, and manual fire hydrants every twenty meters.

  "We need to try to get to the ventilation control room," I said confidently. "If we reduce the air inflow, the fire will start to suffocate, and we can put it out..."

  "You're not going alone! We'll go down into the corridor together," Sarah declared and ran to the room, returning with a bedsheet and two wet towels. "Quick! Tie it over your face like a mask!"

  Tying the wet towel around my neck like a scarf, covering my nose and mouth with it, I tied one corner of the sheet to the handle of the door leading to the kitchen and threw the other end into the ventilation shaft. Climbing back onto the table, I struggled to push my head into the corridor. When half my torso was in the corridor, I lost my balance and fell onto the floor, which was already heating up. Moving along the wall in clouds of thick smoke, I walked until I felt a fire cabinet. Opening it and taking out the fire hose, I tried to unwind it, but it had adhered so firmly to the bracket over time that moving it was practically impossible.

  Seeing that Sarah was also sticking her head through the transom and preparing to jump into the corridor after me, I stopped her:

  "Wait, hand me the crowbar first..."

  Apparently, they heard our voices in the other rooms and began frantically pounding on the doors. While Sarah was climbing down for the tool, I realized the fire was spreading from the fifth apartment from ours. That one, as far as I remembered, was occupied by either Lieutenant Howard or someone from Uncle Clyde's group.

  Sarah threw me the crowbar, then easily climbed through the transom and descended down the hanging bedsheet. The temperature in the corridor became more unbearable with each second, but she didn't even show it.

  "The fire hose won't unwind; something's jammed. We need to try to beat down the flames before we suffocate," I pointed toward the fifth door.

  We took each other's hands and, ducking under the layer of smoke, approached the blazing doors. The fire was consuming the interior lining, doors, and furniture in the entrance hall at full power. While I was again trying to unwind the cursed fire hose, Sarah, meanwhile, tried to beat down the flames with the wet sheet. But it was useless. The fire only flared up even more.

  "What does this mean?" Sarah shouted in anger, waving the wet sheet.

  I shrugged, dropped the stubborn hose, and tried to open the door to the neighboring apartment, but it wouldn't open.

  Again, taking hands, we crawled away from the fire and tried to reach the next fire cabinet. As soon as I managed to break the lock off with the crowbar, I grabbed the fire extinguisher.

  We crouched to the floor where there was still some oxygen and tried to catch our breath. The smoke above us was getting thicker.

  "You, Sarah, stay here," I indicated, "and I'll try to get to the control room."

  Our nerves were stretched to the limit. We were suffocating, and from inside the rooms, they were pounding on all the doors as if there were madmen inside.

  "Stop banging!" I shouted loudly. "Stop!"

  The banging stopped, but not everywhere. A little before reaching the main exit, I found another fire cabinet with an extinguisher, but the flames had already spread to the ceiling panels. The doors of the fifth apartment with the fire source were very close to me, and I made a new decision. I had a fire extinguisher in my hands, and I needed to try to put out the fire.

  With great difficulty, not letting go of the extinguisher, I tried to push aside the burning debris blocking my path into the fifth apartment where the fire was raging. Suddenly, a piece of plastic decorative ceiling panel collapsed, and the fire flared up so much it almost knocked me off my feet. Gathering my strength, I rushed forward again, dousing everything in my path with foam from the extinguisher. The last tongues of flame licking the walls gradually subsided under the foam when Sarah joined me with a second extinguisher. When the fire was finally extinguished, Sarah wearily dropped the empty canister.

  The ventilation, which I never managed to shut off, quickly carried away the last clouds of smoke to the surface.

  "Come to my place," she said as if speaking to a child. "We need to catch our breath, otherwise I'll die right now."

  We went to the apartment she occupied, stopped in the hallway, and took off our charred, smoke-smelling clothes. Holding hands, we first headed to the shower, from which I didn't want to leave for as long as possible. But Sarah, remembering that others were waiting for us, washed off all the soot, rushed to the wardrobes, took out two clean shirts, and we changed. Dressed, we sat opposite each other in deep, soft armchairs.

  "Don't you have anything at your bar?" I was still trembling, and when Sarah returned with a bottle of whiskey, I poured myself a drink and drank with uncharacteristic greed. I don't know what Sarah was thinking at that moment, but I had one desire—to sit like this for an endlessly long time, enjoy her presence, and never leave this room again. "Everyone who was dear to me left my life irrevocably," I thought. "My ex-wife left me, Hunter died. And haven't I earned at least a few minutes of happiness?"

  "So, shall we go save the others?" Sarah asked me after a while.

  "Yes, right now, only one thing is unclear to me: why did the door locks fail on all doors simultaneously?"

  Out of habit, she rubbed her temples with her fingers and thought for a long time.

  "Lieutenant Howard occupied that apartment. Could it be his doing?"

  "He couldn't have oriented himself that quickly," I tried to dispel her doubts, but suspicions began involuntarily coming to mind: even back when we were confined in the shelter control room, Howard persistently questioned how the control systems worked and which systems were responsible for life support in the shelter. Then his persistent interest was aroused by the drones. Suspecting nothing bad, I explained to him in detail how to load programs for work in the vegetable storages, how they could be used for other purposes. The lieutenant showed such interest that I involuntarily thought—was he plotting something?

  "Besides not requiring rest," he told me, "they can work around the clock. And they don't require food, which is of no small importance in the conditions we're in... Just keep charging their batteries and send them back to work."

  "Could it all be about food?" flashed through my mind. "Could he have resorted to crime for that?... No, it can't be!"

  "Let's go!" I said to Sarah and resolutely headed for the exit.

  Uncle Clyde, as far as I remembered, had settled in the seventh apartment.

  We knocked. A muffled voice came from behind the door.

  "Uncle Clyde? Is that you? Are you all right?"

  "Yes, it's me, listen carefully!" he shouted from inside. "There's a security panel for forced door locking at the corridor entrance. It's a special mechanism for security services in case someone who posed a danger had to be isolated. Check it... the access code is 8569245."

  What he said next, neither I nor Sarah listened to anymore.

  We approached the entrance hermetic doors of the residential sector, but there turned out to be no less than ten boxes with electronic panels. We opened one, a second, a third, and only when trying to open the fourth did we discover that an access code needed to be entered. Quickly entering the code dictated to us by Clyde, we found inside neat rows of switches with corresponding apartment numbers. Opposite the numbers of the apartments we occupied, the switches were in the "locked" position. Disabling the lockout, we approached the door of luxury suite number nine, where I had settled. We entered the standard unlock code. It opened.

  Then we opened Uncle Clyde's door.

  "Where is that Lieutenant Howard?" was the first thing he asked us.

  "Why do you need him?"

  "I'll bet it's his doing. Last night he questioned me in detail about how the door opening systems worked, asked about places where power supply cables are routed..."

  Our suspicions about Howard only intensified, but neither I nor Sarah answered him. Instead, we silently began opening the doors of the apartments where our comrades were trapped. Only in the second-to-last one, where Emily and Kyla lived, did we finally find the lieutenant.

  "What are you doing here?" Sarah asked.

  "What's it to you?!"

  But he, apparently, realized he should somehow justify his presence.

  "I came to see how they were doing, and when I wanted to leave, the doors wouldn't open..."

  Sarah wordlessly led the girls to the kitchen. I and Uncle Clyde were left alone with the lieutenant.

  "So! Now tell us, why did you do it?" the technician asked him.

  But Howard pretended not to understand what he was being asked about.

  At that moment, Sarah returned and called me into the hallway.

  "Keep a close eye on him," she whispered. "It's his doing. He convinced the girls that only the three of them were left alive, and the food would last them a lifetime..."

  I hurried into the living room, but neither Howard nor Uncle Clyde was there. The door to the bedroom was tightly shut, and sounds of struggle came from there. Then a shot rang out and the muffled groan of a wounded man. I immediately understood: opening the door now was mortally dangerous—otherwise, I'd meet the same fate. I acted quickly: I barricaded the bedroom door (it opened toward me) with a table, and placed both armchairs on top. Realizing I could barricade the door, Howard tried to break it down. He threw himself at the door in a rage, but my barricade held, and the door opened only a few centimeters. Then a shot came from the bedroom.

  Unlike the outer hermetic metal doors, the interior ones were wooden. Howard fired from his rifle incessantly and soon almost completely riddled the door panel with bullets. I had no choice but to surrender my position and run out into the corridor, where I was safe. The metal doors were beyond his capability; just in case, I ran to the lock control panel and manually locked the door... then took off on the run, calling for help, to the control room where we, after dealing with the spiders, had carelessly left all our weapons...

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