Chapter 17: Living in Secrecy

As promised, the man who offered to help me escape came by in the early afternoon of the same day I had talked to Sebastian. Leo was still sleeping, like he enjoyed doing most days, and since the brothel was busier at night, he let us hookers do whatever we wanted in the mornings and afternoons. Sometimes we had client appointments during the day, and Leo expected us to go to those because he didn't want to hear about a client not getting the service he paid for. As for the brothel itself, he left the bar open for anyone who might wander in for a drink, and usually had Piper or I bartend. Since I had gotten up early today and was outside, Piper took over the bar. The man, whose name was Everett, met me in the back of the brothel to avoid the possibility of anyone seeing us leave. I didn't take anything with me except my wedding ring, my pile of cash I'd made, and the pair of earrings I happened to be wearing. Everett gave me some sweats to put over my hooker clothes, more comfortable shoes, and a handkerchief to cover my hair.

Everett told me that I needed to lay low for a while in case Leo decided to search for me, and he said he had just the place. When he led me to this abandoned building, I was confused at first because I had never seen anyone in here at all, and I wondered if I had made a bad decision. Was Everett just some creep who wanted to murder me or something? I gave myself a silent pep talk in my head, trying to convince myself that I needed to trust Everett somewhat because he hadn't tried to hurt me at all so far. I continued following Everett down the hallways until we got to a trapdoor in the floor. Everett pulled it open and motioned for me to go down the ladder to the ground below. 

As I crouched down, I saw another man in a brown coat standing down in the opening. He had his hands crossed over his chest, with a symbol of something on his sleeve. I could see that there wasn't much light down below and I panicked a little bit, but I bit my lip and thought, I'd made it this far, I should at least see what lay in store for me. I climbed down the ladder, and the man below greeted me. His name was Stanley.

Stanley took me to a door that led to a room with two chairs in it. The floors were cobblestone and bumpy under my feet. He motioned for me to sit in the chair that was in the middle of the room while he grabbed the other chair and pulled it over to me. I was still nervous about this escape, but I was comforted that neither Everett nor Stanley had made any sudden movements towards me. I realized Stanley had me in this room for an interrogation of sorts, as they probably couldn't trust anyone really, seeing as nothing was what it appeared to be anymore.

"So, you said your name is Iliana? Everett said he found you working at the brothel, and that you ended up there because you were taken?

"Yes, I was. A few nights after the chemical attack, looters came into my house, shot my husband, raped me, and took me to the brothel."

"I'm so sorry that happened to you. This place is called The Underground. We do research under the radar of the military. What that means is we don't trust the military at all, or whoever might be controlling the military, so we're very secretive about what we do."

"You're a bunch of conspiracy theorists? So... do you live underground? Away from the rest of society?"

Great. I just went from one group of crazy people to another. Stop it, Iliana, these men offered to help you, the least you could do is not pass judgment on them. Stanley seemed nice just like Everett was.

"No. We all have homes in society, and regular jobs. This is just our research facility, but we do have some beds too for when we're working down here and need a nap. That's where we can let you stay till you figure out what you want to do. We have resources, we can help you with whatever you need."

I was relieved that Stanley seemed to be fairly normal, despite my first impression of what he had told me. I wasn't really sure what I needed, other than to stop selling my body for sex.

"Um, thank you... for offering me your hospitality. What is it that you do down here?"

"You're welcome. We have been trying to grow food again. Just one more thing before we leave this room. Please don't tell anyone about the location of this place. The military will for sure shut it down and destroy all our research if they get a hold of it. We've been sending some people with the task of trying to test the ground above to see if soil can be volatile in it again, but every time we try, the person gets thrown in jail for a while. For some reason, the powers that be don't want to even think about the possibility of the ground being useful again."

I nodded, not wanting to overthrow what I thought was good work these people seemed to be doing. I would love to have a fresh fruit or vegetable again, as I hadn't been eating anything but the mediocre microwave meals for over a month now.

"All right, I can give you a tour of the facility now, if you're interested, or I can let you sleep and we can take the tour later? Which would you prefer?"

"I'd like the tour."

Stanley put his chair back in the corner of the room, and opened the door. I followed him as he showed me the sleeping quarters, the plant room, the research stations, and finally the infirmary. After the tour, we went back to the plant room because I wanted to admire the beautiful foliage that I hadn't seen for so long. As I stood in front of a vase of the most beautiful pink flowers, I allowed myself to enjoy the smell of them.

"Stanley, how did you get all these to grow again?"

"While most people went to the grocery stores to loot, we went to the gardening stores and took the bags of dirt and fertilizer. We have them in a stockpile down here, and we filter our own water to water the plants."

"That's so smart."

I was in awe of the progress that the people down here were making, and suddenly I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to make a difference. Before I had been taken to the brothel, I was a woman who didn't do much with herself. I didn't really have any goals, nothing I was working towards. I felt like I had everything I needed and wanted, the perfect husband, the perfect house, I never suffered financially. I felt like this was a chance for me to start over, at least until I felt like enough time had passed for Leo to give up looking for me.

"How can I help? I love the thought of one day restoring good food to the world above."

"Does tending the plants sound good to you? We've got people above who do the more risky stuff like the testing of the ground and experimenting with trying to get small streams started again, but that wouldn't be good for you since someone is looking for you."

"Tending the plants sounds wonderful. It'll be good for me to live in secrecy for a while."