Sierra really didn't like this. The whole thing smelled like a trap. Why would all the security on the vault just open up like that? Why exactly would those bunker doors completely disengage, sliding apart while practically putting out a welcome sign, if these people were trying to keep the intruder, who had already started killing people here, out? They had all that protection, all those armored doors and weapons set up, and all of it just completely shut down for no clear reason?

  “Maybe whoever made it through that portal and killed those guards already got inside this place somehow, and this is how people in there are asking for help.” That was Irelyn, and she sounded just about as anxious about this whole thing as Sierra felt. “They could be in trouble.”

  Haley was already starting to move that way. “Well, we won't get any answers by standing out here wondering about it. Yeah, yeah, it could be a trap. Maybe this asshole got in there first somehow, despite everything, and he's luring us in after him. Or maybe, just maybe, they opened those doors to get us inside before he gets here so we can all come up with a plan together.”

  She muttered a curse under her breath before adding, “Either way, standing here with our damn thumbs up our butts accomplishes nothing. If this is a trap, let's just go set it off and deal with it. If they need help, we can't do anything out here. And if they just want to invite us in so we can all come up with a plan before he gets here, we're screwing it up by standing around. Move your asses, people.” With that, she waved a hand emphatically for them to follow her into the tunnel.

  Fine, fine, she had a point. Standing out here really wasn't accomplishing anything at all. And if it was a trap, they really should just go ahead and set it off so they could deal with it. All in all, standing here was completely pointless. And Sierra was never going to say no to a plan that involved actually doing something rather than doing nothing at all. There was far too much of the ‘do nothing and see what happens’ going around in general, as far as she was concerned.

  She could tell both Paige and Irelyn wanted to go on about it a little more and debate the whole thing, but she and Haley were already walking straight to the open doorway, so they gave up and followed, though only after exchanging a couple exasperated looks with one another. That really was the best way to get Paige to finally stop analyzing everything so much and just move. You simply had to take the plunge for her and make it clear that she either had to jump in or get left behind.

  It was just too bad that Sierra couldn't solve everything Paige was being stupidly hesitant about that way. Some things she was just going to have to get through on her own, without that help.

  But in this case, pushing her to act was the right move. The four of them walked quickly but carefully down that tunnel, keeping their eyes and ears open for anything. While they might have been okay with setting off any trap, they weren't going to be stupid about it. They had spread out a bit so they wouldn’t all be caught at once if they really did set anything off. Irelyn insisted on going first, with Paige and then Sierra each several feet back and away from each other. Haley, despite being the first to insist they start going inside and the one most eager to get in there to see what was going on, brought up the rear just in case something came at them from behind.

  Honestly, Sierra had no idea what it was going to take before she and Paige stopped being treated like little kids who needed to be protected. Both of the older girls were just keeping the two of them right in the middle, as if they could shield them from anything that might jump out.

  It was very tempting to sarcastically point out that some sort of threat could still drop out of the ceiling at them to ambush the group that way, but Sierra really didn't even want to think about what sort of absurd bullshit Irelyn would try to come up with to shield their heads from that.

  Yeah, okay, maybe it wasn't so bad to have somebody who cared that much and wanted her to be safe. But still, she wasn't an invalid. She could deal with this. Whatever was going on, she wanted Irelyn and Haley to focus on putting the motherfucker in the ground before he hurt anyone else, not keep obsessing over how to protect Paige and her. They were fully capable of helping these two deal with whatever this was. The other two should be putting all their attention on that, not on how to shield the Biolem sisters so much. Just--it just truly annoyed her, damn it.

  It was a fairly long tunnel, which just gave all of them time to obsess over everything that might have gone wrong. And one thing that really didn't help was the fact that when they got halfway through it, the doors behind them started closing. Yeah, that was definitely creepy. Unfortunately, it didn't answer any of their questions. The bunker door closing behind them would fit with any of the options they'd considered, whether it was the Adherents summoning them in so they could talk before the threat got there, or summoning them because the threat was already inside and they needed help, or the threat itself getting them to come into a trap and closing the doors so they couldn't escape. Any of the three options still fit with sealing them in once they were there.

  At least the tunnel remained lit. Sierra wasn’t sure which of the options that fit best with, but still. Some part of her hoped that if this really was an ambush, whoever was behind it would just get to the ambushing already so they could get through it. If this was going to turn into a fight, do it now. It was the waiting and the worrying and the obsessively thinking about what might happen that made the whole situation so much worse. It gave her time to imagine bad things, and her dumb imagination was capable of creating incredibly vivid, dark scenarios. She needed to shut it up.

  It certainly didn't help that she had seen how cleanly and efficiently whoever this was could kill. She had looked behind the welcoming desk when they arrived, seeing the two victims there with a single stab wound right in the center of the back of their heads. This person had been able to get close enough to kill those two with one quick thrust from some sort of blade. And they had done it either quickly or quietly enough to manage it with two different victims while leaving no sign that either of them had been able to put up a struggle or defend themselves in any way. Somehow, they had managed to get behind each of the victims without being noticed.

  They reached the end of the tunnel without running into any actual problems. Nothing else even happened aside from those doors closing behind them. Now, they were standing in front of the main vault door itself. That hadn’t opened, at least not yet. The thing stood a good fifteen feet tall and almost as wide, a heavy, circular metal disc blocking their way forward. The only visible way of interacting with the vault door at all was a single dark blue button about three feet off the floor and directly in the middle of the door. Other than that, the whole thing was blank featureless metal.

  Haley walked around the other three, giving Sierra in particular a reassuring look before heading straight to the button. “Okay, you guys spread out and be ready, just in case. Whatever’s going on here, we’re about to find out for sure.” She paused briefly before muttering, “At least we fucking better.” Then her hand rose, pressing the button. She held it down while a beep filled the air, before speaking clearly. “Hey, it’s Echo. What’s going on in there? You all need some help?”

  Sierra, who had taken several steps to the side and turned slightly so she could keep both that door and what little remained of the tunnel they could see that hadn’t closed up behind them in view, waited anxiously. Wait, no, she wasn’t anxious. Definitely not anxious. She was cool and calm, totally prepared for anything that might happen. Who said she was anxious? Fuck that.

  At first there was no response at all, which really wasn’t helping any of them calm down. This entire situation was just too strange, too--fuck, it was too close to turning into some stupid horror movie. This stupid tunnel full of vault doors, the main one in front of them standing there all imposing and shit, being closed up in a former mineshaft like this while some threat that had already killed people was stalking around somewhere on this island? Would someone on the other end of that intercom just speak up and explain what was going on already, goddamn it? Sierra wanted to fucking punch the shit out of someone until they stayed down already, not wonder how long it would take for the inevitable threat to jump out of nowhere to ambush them.

  Finally, just as she was about to snap, a new voice, female and clearly frightened, spoke up through the intercom. “Um, hey out there. Listen, whoever this person is, this thing that came through that portal, they’re a shapeshifter. But it’s more than just changing shape. They’ve got some sort of trust power or something. It works on biologicals and technology. All our security just turned off for them. The doors opened and the weapons powered down. They walked right up to our guards and everyone just treated them like they were a friend. It's like as soon as they turn into a shape you might vaguely trust, you have to trust them, even if you should know better. If you see them, you trust them. I--we don’t know how it works exactly. But be careful.”

  There was a brief pause before she added in a voice that shook even more than it already had been, “Only trust yourselves, your group, whoever you are. Don’t believe anyone you see or talk to in here, not even me. We’re all hiding, trying to stay together in pairs so we can watch each other. Just… just lock us up. No matter who you talk to, tie us up, secure us, make sure we can’t do anything. Lock us down until you find this shapeshifter, whatever it takes. Please be careful.”

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  With that, the intercom clicked off and the enormous vault door disc began to roll sideways with a loud, echoing grinding noise and a freaking siren that made it very obvious throughout the entire bunker that someone was coming in. They definitely wouldn't be able to sneak in this damn place now, that was for sure. That door and the siren attached to it were probably loud enough to let every person on the whole fucking island know they were opening it.

  The group braced themselves, but didn't see anyone on the other side. That open vault door led into what was obviously some sort of security check area. It was a round room, about twenty feet across. The walls and floor were featureless metal, clearly reinforced and meant to stand against anything that could try to damage or cut through them. A single podium was right in the middle of that room, as if meant for a host to stand behind, greeting people as they came in. Like this was some fucking restaurant. Only most restaurants probably didn’t have a trio of deadly-looking automated turrets sticking down out of the ceiling to point at incoming guests.

  Fortunately, the guns weren’t active. Something--someone had turned them off, so now they were just pointed downward. Some part of Sierra wondered why whoever this intruder was hadn’t left them active to stop anyone from coming in behind them, but that felt a bit too much like succumbing to paranoia. Besides, maybe this person didn’t want to have to deal with the turrets again when they came back. Or their power left things disabled. Or they expected allies to eventually come in behind them. After all, there had been an entire mercenary army back there fighting to get through that portal. Whoever this shapeshifter was, they were just some sort of advanced scout. Did they even know the rest of their violent little group had been stopped?

  Either way, the turrets weren’t a problem now, and they certainly hadn’t been responsible for the single dead body that was lying at the base at that podium. It was a male figure wearing some sort of security uniform, with that same familiar single stab wound in the back of his head, the exact way those two out in the main entrance lobby of the island greeting tower had been killed. Obviously, whoever this shapeshifter was had a preferred method of dealing with their victims.

  Seeing that, Irelyn grimaced and made a motion as though to stop Sierra and Paige from seeing it. But she gave up on that soon enough and simply spoke up quietly. “Okay, so according to our new friend--maybe friend--on the intercom, we’re dealing with a shapeshifter who can make both people and technology trust them. Automated security, locks, none of that will work. Nobody let each other out of our sight. The four of us stick together at all times. Nobody else can be trusted. It doesn’t matter what your senses tell you, what your brain tells you, none of that. It’s just us.”

  The woman was already starting to move that way, sword drawn as she continued. “Everyone we run into, we lock down. We tie them up, secure them, whatever we need to do. Once we’ve made it through the whole place, we’ll figure out who the real intruder is. Right now, we just take it room by room, tie up everyone as soon as we see them, then move on nice and methodically.”

  Sierra groaned out loud at that, exaggeratedly playing up her discontent. “Yeah, that all sounds totally boring and long. I think I’ve got a better idea.” She offered a small smirk when all three of them turned to look at her expectantly. “And hey, I’m pretty sure you’re all really gonna hate it.”

  ***************

  Some time later, Paige and Sierra walked ahead of the other two, who were staying back to cover them. They had passed through that entrance room and into a rounded metal tunnel beyond. This vault was meant to keep a hundred people safe and secure for ten years, which meant it wasn’t exactly small. The tunnel led past a dozen workshops and labs where the ‘guests’ were supposed to be able to keep doing their work even if they did end up being locked in for all that time. There were elevators and stairs at the far end that would lead down to the living areas, with a third level even lower than that where the oxygen generators, farms, and some sort of nuclear power supply were all kept. Plus probably some other important things.

  Paige and Sierra moved together down that narrow tunnel. When they reached the first door, the one on the left, Paige split off and stepped into the room there, while Sierra kept going just a bit further. There was another door a few feet down on the right. The room Paige had gone into was clearly labeled as a science lab, while this one was a supply room for that lab. When Sierra stepped through the door, she found herself standing amongst dozens of white plastic boxes stacked from the floor to the ceiling, all with barcodes stamped onto them, waiting to be scanned to tell whoever came looking for things what was inside. But more importantly, at the far end of the pile of boxes, there were two people crouched in the corner, staring fearfully at her. They definitely didn’t look like threats at least. Not that that meant much. One was a little boy, ten or eleven years old, with red hair. He was dressed casually, in shorts and a tee-shirt, along with a long brown jacket that was much too big for him. The other was a taller, dark-haired man in his twenties who was dressed like a janitor, with a green jumpsuit and lots of keys on his belt.

  Seeing those two, Sierra beckoned. She knew showing up like this wearing an old ski mask probably didn’t do that much to make her look trustworthy, but still. “Hey, I’m with the people who have been trying to stop this whole thing. We’ve got a tool to identify the shapeshifter, so come on.” Without waiting for a protest or agreement, she took the boy by the arm and tugged him over. Giving the kid a push toward the exit, she turned back to the janitor and knelt down to face him. “Do you guys know anything else about what’s been happening in here?” Turning around then from that kneeling position to face the boy she had pushed toward the exit, Sierra added, “It’s okay, I promise. We’re gonna get you all out of here, identify the shapeshifter, and you’ll be fine.”

  Neither the boy nor the janitor could offer any more information than what Sierra already knew. Aside from their names, that was. The kid was Henri Bolsen, who was very worried about his older sister, a girl named Carla. She was somewhere else in this place, but the two had been separated. The janitor was Michael Statser, who really wanted to be a part of this whole space endeavor, but didn’t have the science skills to contribute that way. So he cleaned up after everyone else, working as part of the custodian team. He had seen Henri wandering around the corridor out there looking for his sister, and dragged him in this supply closet to get out of sight.

  Sierra gestured for the two to follow her out. They went right to where Paige was already helping another couple, these ones actual scientists, out of the lab on the other side of the hall. The two Biolems met each other’s gazes briefly before turning to where Irelyn and Haley were. “Four here,” Sierra called out. “You’re gonna need to pat them down just to make sure.”

  While the two adults were busy with that, she and Paige moved forward again. They kept going through the rooms, each taking one, locating whoever was inside and finding out what they knew before sending them out to be searched and then tied up by Haley and Irelyn. Those two had found a coil of sturdy rope in one of the supply closets out front, and Haley was using her Echoed knife power to cut lengths of it off to make sure everyone was tied up properly. Once each person was secured, they would be told to sit down there in the corridor, facing one another to talk amongst themselves until this was over.

  That continued as the group made their way down the stairs at the end of the hall to start moving through the living area. There was a large kitchen, dining area, separate apartments, a game room, everything people could need to stay sane if they actually ended up getting locked in down here for a decade. Except maybe sunlight, though by this point Sierra wouldn’t have been surprised to find out they’d found a way to bring that in too.

  They found other people, scattered throughout these rooms in pairs and trios. Soon there were dozens of them out in this second level corridor as well. Sierra was getting more and more anxious about the whole situation. She wanted it over with already.

  Eventually, she stepped into one of the smaller kitchen areas, meant for just a few people to use rather than the main restaurant-level kitchen that was intended to feed the whole bunker. There were two people here as well, one of them a rather tall and incredibly thin teen girl with red hair, who confirmed that she was Carla, the little boy’s sister. Carla was apparently the one who had answered their intercom call earlier. She immediately wanted to know if Henri was okay, and Sierra confirmed that he was before adding that they would just need to use their shapeshifter detector to make sure these two were who they said they were and then they would take them straight to the others.

  Sierra was standing there with both hands on the girl’s shoulders, looking her in the eyes while giving her that reassurance, when Carla abruptly cried out in shock and warning. But it was too late. Something long and sharp suddenly cut straight through the back of Sierra’s head. She tasted metal in her mouth, as the knife was plunged through her skull and out the front of her face.

  “Pity,” the woman who had been huddled on the other side of the kitchen with Carla muttered. “It’s always a shame to kill such a pretty girl. And now I have to kill two.” She added that while facing Carla, who was backing away while trying to scream but only able to make pathetic little wheezing sounds of terror.

  Just as she went to rip the knife back out of the limp Sierra’s skull, however, the shapeshifting woman heard her victim… try to say something? She made a noise of her own, a rather confused one, even as Sierra reached backwards and up, caught her wrist, and yanked hard to twist her hand away from the weapon.

  The shapeshifter was backing up, scrambling away with a series of confused, frantic curses even as Sierra turned to face her while reaching up to grab the hilt of the knife that was buried in her skull. She yanked it out, leaving the back of her skull and part of her face, including one of her eyes, somewhat disturbingly damaged. But she was still very much alive.

  “I said,” Sierra reiterated, “nice try, but I don’t keep my important bits there. And thank you. Do you have any idea how many times my sister and I have been turning our backs to all these people right after claiming we had a tool to identify you, waiting for somebody to try to stab us in the head? It’s about fucking time. And hey, turns out my assumption that you had to stab people in the back of the head to insta-kill them because your power stops forcing them to treat you as a friend the second they see you turn hostile was right. Go me.”

  It was the shapeshifter’s turn to gape at her in fear, mouth opening and shutting. “Wha-what the hell are you!?”

  “Me?” Sierra’s foot abruptly snapped up and out, catching the shapeshifter in the stomach hard enough to double her over before grabbing her neck to slam her head into the wall, leaving her to fall unconscious to the floor.

  “I’m a superhero.”

  Joke Tags: "Okay So Plan A Is We Trick Them Into Stabbing Me In The Head." - Actual Dialogue