The tunnel’s strung with Cat 6 and harsh lights in cages. The air is warm as breath.

It must be miles. The lights begin to struggle; that generator isn’t going to last. Ashlock keeps looking at Tach. Tach says nothing.

At the end it’s a cavern, tall and dim. Warm bodies have worn a star of six depressions in the ice; they were sitting in their own waste. Gone now. Dead monitors on carts drip with condensation.

There’s a great shadow below them, deep in the ice.

Tach collapses. Ashlock grabs him, and sees that his eyes are empty and dark.