Jonah and Thera caught up to Carlin and Kaegan as they were exploring a staircase that went, where else... up.

Carlin turned when he heard Jonah and Thera approach and asked, "You think it heads to the surface?"

Kaegan looked reluctant, raised with the stories of imminent death found above ground and with them a healthy fear of the topside landscape, but Carlin, Jonah, and Thera were remarkably undeterred by the stories. They wanted to get up top and Kaegan could not fathom why they were so eager to freeze to death.

"Let's see," Jonah said and clutched his staff tighter. "Kaegan, you're with me."

"Jonah," Kaegan protested on reflex. When he looked at her she found herself shaking her head.

Jonah seemed sympathetic but not necessarily empathetic. "No choice, Kaegan, remember?"

Kaegan thought back to the devastated caves and the bodies and she nodded once and steeled herself.

Jonah and Kaegan left Carlin and Thera behind to creep up the stairs. In places they had to step over chunks of the ceiling that had come crashing down. They passed one body, dressed in clothing that was not the familiar worker-orange, splayed face-down on the steps. The stairs ascended a long time before they reached the top... and another closed door.

Jonah flattened himself against the wall and gestured toward Kaegan. She stared a moment then looked at Jonah and figured out what he meant. She tip-toed to the other side of the door and likewise plastered herself to the wall.

Jonah pointed at himself, at the door, then at Kaegan and her staff. Kaegan, after a moment, nodded and stood at the ready.

Jonah reached for the handle and carefully eased the door open. He left it ajar an inch and peered through the crack. He saw a large, grand hallway, motionless, darkened, two bodies littering the ground before the passageway arched in a gradual curve.

Jonah opened the door farther and revealed only more of the deserted hallway.

He slipped out of the stairwell, staff at the ready and eyes and ears alert, but there was no stir of motion for his intrusion. There was only the now-familiar stench of the dead and the cold wind that had touched them in the hallway below.

Jonah looked back and motioned for Kaegan, situated in the open doorway, and the woman joined him. They examined the scope of the hallway from their safety of the stairwell but there was nothing to challenge them.

Jonah slowly eased his grip on his weapon and nodded to Kaegan. She lifted her staff and returned to the stairs to signal Carlin and Thera.

When Carlin and Thera joined Jonah in the hallway, Kaegan bringing up the rear, Jonah had already scouted a short distance in both directions and, aside from the two corpses and an additional body out of initial visual range, there was not a sign of other beings.

Kaegan was gaping at the expansive hallway. "I never suspected something like this..." she murmured in awe.

"I imagine the good administrator was full of surprises," Jonah said tersely and looked down both ends of the hallway. He was trying to decide which direction to explore, wishing he had a coin to toss, when something flared in his mind and demanded attention. It had been fleeting but it grabbed him and Jonah frowned.

"Jonah?" Thera asked to his look.

"This way," Jonah pointed to the left and the four began to walk in that direction down the arcing corridor.

They didn't meet another soul, not living, human, alien, god or otherwise. There were a few more bodies and obvious signs of a battle. There were scorch-marks on the walls and floors, a smoky smell of recent fires, and the way the bodies they discovered were arrayed. Legs and arms spread wide, holes and gashes torn into their skin, pools of blood dried rust-brown and cracking like sun-scorched lake beds in a desert. The lights were still functioning, but barely and it constantly threatened to plunge the four into darkness. Jonah wished they'd thought to bring the lanterns from the mines.

They were past one of many doors when Thera reached out and grabbed his arm. He stopped and turned to look at Thera, who gestured soundlessly toward the closed door.

Jonah nodded, signaled Carlin and Kaegan to get clear, and with the foursome pressed to the wall next to the door in question, two on each side, Jonah pressed the electronic command and the door split down the middle and slid open with an easy hush.

Jonah darted a glance into the room then jerked back but he'd seen nothing in that quick look, no threat.

He ordered the others to stay put and slipped into the room, staff at the ready. He crept forward, eyes on the alert, but quickly it became obvious there was no danger from enemy forces. Jonah allowed himself to then really see the room and his staff lowered and deja vu gripped him.

At the right side of the room was a large, pretentious bench like a judge's station. It faced a smooth, ornate floor... then there was the window on the left. Its glass was missing, of course, glittering with sunlight and crunching underfoot on the floor, and the floor was missing pieces, too. Jonah, however, was staring out the window.

At the city burning.

The curving cap to the dome that covered the metropolis was trapping smoke and creating a dark gray fog. There was a hole in the dome, easily the size of a house, as well as a number of smaller ones speckling the surface of the canopy, and smoke was escaping even as sunlight and flakes of snow were coming in. The sprawling cityscape was a scene of utter devastation. The streets were littered with debris; buildings were lying collapsed on each other, the horizon, back dropped against the white-washed glass of the dome, a jagged line.

"Jonah!" a harsh whisper came from the doorway.

Jonah looked over to see Carlin peeking in.

"It's clear," Jonah said lowly, staggered by what he was looking at, and the others stepped inside.

As one they jerked to a halt and stared, wide-eyed, at the vista.

Kaegan dropped her staff and her hands went to her mouth in shock. Her eyes widened and she started to tremble. "What... how...?"

Jonah felt a hand on his arm and looked down to see Thera holding on to him, her eyes transfixed on the scene outside the administrator's office window.

Jonah looked toward the other two and saw Carlin with his hand on Kaegan's shoulder as her complexion paled and her breathing hitched wildly.

"It's a bio-dome," Thera whispered in amazement and Jonah looked out again.

"This explains so much," Thera said, her hands unconsciously clutching Jonah's arm tighter. "The engine output readings, Brenna refusing to let me upgrade our equipment. They were hiding this. We were supporting this!"

Jonah turned to look at the administrator's desk. Something about it seemed important.

"How can this be?" Kaegan squeaked.

"They lied to us, all of us," Jonah answered, even though Kaegan's tone had been rhetorical, and Jonah extricated himself from Thera's grasp to step toward the bench. He went to the side, rounded the side of the structure, then walked up to the backside of the raised area. The backside was full of shelves. He bent down and started to examine the contents of each. When he found something black he pulled it out to study it in the light.

"What did you find?" Thera asked. Carlin, his arm now completely around Kaegan's shoulders, looked up at Jonah in curiosity.

Jonah frowned. "Not sure." He pawed over his find. It was black mesh and heavy fabric, ripe with pockets. He reached inside those pockets and found a wealth of items. A lighter, a pocketknife, a hand-sized mirror, a compass, quinine tablets, aspirin, medical gauze, butterfly stitches.

"Now this is what you need for an expedition," Jonah muttered to himself, pleased at his find.

Encouraged, Jonah pulled out the rest of the items in the same shelf with the black article of clothing. It amounted to a small mountain of gear. In all there were four vests with almost identical supplies in the pockets (one did not have the quinine and the aspirin but instead contained sweet tidbits of food), and four strappy items with three items each hanging off them. Jonah pulled one up to look closer at it. He knew it was a belt. Attached to it was a small jug that sloshed when he shook it, so it was obviously a container for water (much sturdier than the bags they were totting around). Jonah trailed his fingers to the next attached item and his hand closed with dark familiarity around the handle of a knife. He unclipped the securing strap and pulled free the blade.

"Weapons," Thera uttered appreciatively when she saw Jonah hold up the knife. She started toward the far end of the bench to join Jonah behind the furniture piece as he studied his treasure.

"Sweet," Jonah said aloud, then re-sheathed the knife and his hand closed, like muscle memory, over the last attached item. His thumb released the snap-button over the hammer-guard and the pistol slid easily out of the holster.

"This is more like it," Jonah said as he sighted the weapon out the window as Thera arrived at his side. The weapon's weight and balance were like a figure arisen from his dream, intimately familiar and one with his touch.

"Enough for everyone," Thera noted, almost ecstatic, while Jonah's hands smoothed over the gun. He paused then his hands moved for him. He released the clip and checked the magazine... fully loaded. He reloaded the magazine, pulled back the barrel to chamber a round, then thumbed on the weapon's safety.

Jonah hefted the belt and thigh attachment and frowned at the latter. There was an odd-shaped holster on the thigh-strap, empty on each of the sets, and he couldn't begin to imagine what manner of equipment or weapon had belonged there. Since it was missing he deemed it irrelevant and unfastened the thigh clasp and dropped the pointless attachment to the floor.

"Carlin, Kaegan, come up here," Jonah beckoned and Carlin (stooping to first recover the staff) gently guided a still-stunned Kaegan toward where Jonah and Thera stood. Jonah was already shrugging on one of the black vests, one fit him just right, and fastening the front clasps over his clothes. He hooked the belt around his waist and it all settled on his body so perfectly.

Carlin and Kaegan reached his other side and Carlin eyed the black mass questioningly as he propped the staff against the desk.

Jonah handed one vest to Carlin, one that looked his size. "Here, put this on."

Carlin let go of Kaegan and, after a moment looking at the vest, did so. Thera had already claimed one of the vests, the largest that had lacked most medical supplies, so Jonah riffled through the remaining belt and vest set. He took off the thigh strap, removed the gun (while he was comfortable with the idea of Carlin and Thera with a gun it seemed unwise to give one to Kaegan, and it was not even a matter of trust since he was not reluctant to give her the knife), then turned to Kaegan. "Kaegan, here you are, you put this one on."

Carlin was already adorned with both belt and vest and he was patting at it as though testing the feel of it on him. It fit him better than Jonah had thought it would.

Kaegan looked up at Jonah and her eyes were glistening, disillusioned and shaken like a child.

Jonah frowned sadly and he stepped toward the woman. "It's all right, here," and he eased first one of her arms into the vest then gently wrestled her second into it. The whole thing hung a little loose on her but fastened up it would do. Carlin, with a shy smile and apology, had put the belt on for her.

Kaegan looked down at herself, only then seeming to notice the black article she wore.

Jonah turned to find Thera had wormed her way into the fourth vest. Even as the largest of the batch it failed to come even close to covering her stomach and the belt was an obstacle of epic proportions so she'd removed sheath and holster and attached it to the vest itself (a little awkward-looking but functional all the same). She looked more in control just for having the weapons at hand.

"This is much better," Jonah said with a glint in his eye and Thera, equally energized, nodded emphatically in return.

"Let's see what else there is in this building," Jonah said and, taking up his staff, he waited for his group to collect themselves. Kaegan, though still rattled, had presence of mind to pick up her staff and follow, unguided, as the four of them, geared up in the black vests found in the administrator's office, trooped out to search the building.