In no time, he had cleared a path through the rubble. It led into the depths of what once was a building.
“Come on—here we go.” K-lx came back out to take her hand and then led her through the path he had made. “There it is.” He pointed and Corinne looked.
There, standing under a reinforced titanium cage, was the door to an elevator. Even when the building had collapsed around it, the metal cage had kept the elevator from being destroyed. And when she pushed the down button, a green light blinked on.
“Oh—it’s still working!” Corinne exclaimed when she heard a soft humming sound and the doors slid open smoothly.
“Kindred tech—you can’t beat it.” K-lx nodded in satisfaction. “Come on, baby—let’s go see what we can find out.”
28
CORINNE
They stepped into the elevator which was in perfect order—it gave Corinne hope that the rest of the lab might still be functional too. She had no idea what power source the Kindred had used to keep their tech working smoothly for so long but it was clearly superior to anything that humans had today.
The elevator seemed to go down a long, long way and she was beginning to get nervous when it finally came to a stop. They must be hundreds of feet below the surface of the Earth, she thought. Whatever was down here, the Kindred had felt the need to keep it extremely secret and secure.
There was a faint ding and the elevator door slid open, allowing them to step out. But Corinne hesitated at first—the forgotten Kindred lab was a pit of pitch blackness.
K-lx, however, had no problem at all.
“Come on, baby—it’s okay,” he urged her.
“But…it’s so dark. What if there’s something down here?” Corinne’s imagination conjured all kinds of horrors from the black pit before them.
But again, the big Cyborg wasn’t worried.
“Lights on!” he shouted.
Suddenly the whole place was flooded with golden radiance.
Corinne blinked and winced, trying to get her eyes used to the sudden brilliance. She took a step out of the elevator, tripped, and nearly fell.
K-lx caught her and put his arm around her again.
“Sorry, Mistress—I should have warned you. Are you all right? Do you want me to turn the lights down a little?”
“Maybe just a little.” She shaded her eyes with her hand and blinked.
“Lights low,” he growled and the brilliance dimmed to a much more manageable level.
“Thanks, K-lx.” She smiled up at him gratefully.
“Anything for you, baby.” He squeezed her gently and smiled. “Come on—I remember this place. I know where we need to go.”
He led her through a maze of metal corridors until they came to a control room filled with computers—the old-fashioned kind with solid screens instead of air-interfaces. It was surprisingly clean with just a thin layer of dust on the surfaces. Clearly the air circulation and cleaning protocols were still working.
Corinne sat at one of the monitors and began typing…but she came up against a password screen almost at once.
“Can you get past this?” she asked, looking up at the big Cyborg. “I have no idea what they might have used as their password.”
“Sure. Here.” K-lx made a fist with his right hand and a metal spike extended from the middle knuckle. He plugged the spike into a spot on the keyboard and the password screen dissolved.
“Welcome, Dr. Jippy,” a feminine voice purred. “Your signature is recognized—how may I help you?”
“Oh—how did you do that?” Corinne exclaimed.
K-lx winked.
