Chapter 7 The Cold War Bunker

We travelled for the hour and a half and made our way into the beautiful city of York. During that time, we spoke at length about Dr Immanuel Paley and wondered if the Secret Intelligence Service MI6 were monitoring our movements closely, since we did not have permission to leave China. We pulled up on Acomb Road and walked the two-minute walk to reach the bunker site. The bunker was part of the same grounds as a grand looking stately home type building; however, we avoided the posh bourgeoise residence in case there were cameras. We didn't want to get caught out, especially when Dr Paley was sending us somewhere that he had managed to keep under wraps himself. I would be saddened if we, as a team, were responsible for Paley potentially falling into more trouble with the authorities, or those powerful people Dr Guilder had mentioned upon our first meeting with Dr Immanuel.

We walked to the wrought iron gates surrounding the bunker and made our way through an open gate and up the steps lined by small green walls either side. It seemed quite quiet out on the street. I took the front position in the group and was going to knock on the dark door which was partially lit by the overhead light in the small open hallway. However, at that point I realised the door was ajar. I pushed it slowly but applied a firm amount of pressure as the door was understandably heavy. I walked in so far and waited for everyone else to make it through the doorway after me, and I advised Lava to push the door back, so others didn't wander in. I wondered if there was a group already on a tour, as the website stipulated you had to prebook places. We didn't have any time for prebooking, we didn't want a paper trail of where we were.

At this point Beckett took the lead of our small chain of bodies and called out, "Hello, is there anyone there? We would like to look around the bunker," but Officer Beckett had no luck, there was no reply.

It seemed quite odd for what was a National Heritage site, to be so quiet, yet have the door unlocked. At this point, I was suspicious in every situation. Always having my guard up and being alert.

We made our way down a narrow tunnel, about six feet wide with pipes running down the side of the walls just above head height. Atop the pipes, dotted along the walls were dim yellow lights. Dr Immanuel must have wanted us to go this way, into the bunker. Whatever it was that he wanted us to find, it had to be down there. Right?

"Let's keep going," Kai said, with his words echoing off the walls when Beckett had suddenly halted. Had he heard something?

"Yes," Beckett responded to Kai's words.

 If Beckett had suspected something, he didn't share it with the group. I looked back and saw Dr Derwent nod in reply to Kai's words. The dim yellow lights did not offer much clear visibility of what we were walking into. I was sure we would have all appreciated more lighting than the strip lights dotted along the tunnel offered. Particularly when some of the lights looked to have experienced some water damage in their coverings, creating a very cloudy look.

We managed to walk so far into the mouth of the bunker, until we heard footsteps. It was hard to tell if they were coming from in front of us or from behind at first, as the noise of tapping shoes against hard concrete flooring were distorted within the confined space. Eventually it was evident that the footsteps were coming from behind us. At this point, it seemed Officer Beckett should have headed up the rear of the line, rather than the front. Lava and Dr Henry Derwent were to be the first of us to see the figure approaching.

Jen was on edge, and grabbed my arm, assumingly for moral support rather than to prop her up. An older thin tall woman came into view, with hazel brown eyes and thick hair braids, tied neatly into a low bun. She was smartly dressed in clothes which gave off the air of her having an eccentric flare, she reminded me of the oddly eye-catching fashionable flare of Paley. She came towards us with purpose.

"Excuse me, entering the bunker is by tour only. Have you pre-booked?" she said. Jen lessened her grip on my arm as we all realised the woman must work at the museum. She looked at us all and her gaze rested on me.

Dr Derwent started to offer an explanation, "I apologise for our intrusion and our seeming boldness, but we are here on urgent business."

"We did shout to see if anyone was around, and the door was already open," Beckett added quickly and calmly. "We will come back to wherever we need to pay, money is not an issue," he added.

At that point, the woman did not seem to be paying attention to Dr Derwent or Officer Beckett. She moved passed Lava, Dr Derwent and Jen and looked down at the chain around my neck. "My name is Ada, but I get called Adelaide here," she said, "It is very nice to meet you all. Can I ask you, what is your reason for being here?"

I look at Kai then back at Adelaide. I was not sure how much I should share at this point, but I knew we needed answers, the thought of Dr Paley in distress did not sit well with me. "We are looking for something in particular actually," I answered after a pause.

"You are. And what might that be?" Adelaide replied.

"Well, we're not quite sure," Lava admitted.

"Where did you get that necklace from may I ask?" Adelaide inquired, looking at me questioningly. I was slightly surprised at hearing her direct question and it made me feel she must have known something about why we were there. Afterall it was Dr Immanuel Paley himself who gave me the piece of jewellery in question.

 "It- It was a gift," I answered eventually. "From... erm… a friend," I added quickly.

"If I may be so bold, may I ask what the name of your friend is?" Adelaide replied, not missing a beat.

My gut feeling was that this lady was not a threat to us, and that she may be able to help. So, I decided it was safe to share the truth, "It was given to me by a man called Immanuel Paley."

At that point, all the others were silent, listening to the exchange.

Adelaide smiled, "I once knew Immanuel very well. I am very surprised to see you all here, and without Paley I see."

Kai explained, "We would prefer if Dr Immanuel was here with us. It would make our job a lot easier. Instead, we are having to follow these breadcrumbs," he said holding up the postcard that led us there.

"Well, you must have made a good impression on him, for him to give you my necklace," Adelaide said offering me a smile. I felt a little awkward in that moment, should I take the chain off and give it to its rightful owner? Or had Adelaide given it to Immanuel as a parting gift?

"Did you want it back?" I offered, a little unsure of if this was the right thing to say. "He did say I reminded him of someone when he gave it to me, I just assumed that they might not be with us anymore," I added.

Adelaide, seeing my discomfort warmly laughed, "No, not at all my child. I gave it back to Immanuel, so it was his, to give to whomever he wished."

I offered a smile. I decided it was my chance to start asking about Dr Paley, "Can I ask how you knew Immanuel and for how long? It is just that we could really use your help. Lava is right, we don't know what we are looking for. And as Kai said, we do feel like we are struggling to understand the breadcrumbs Paley keeps leaving us. I wondered if you could have a look at something else that Immanuel gave me?" I gestured for Kai to hand Adelaide the postcard. "This is a picture of here and Dr Immanuel has written on the back. We are in danger, all of us, and we need answers. A few days ago, we all landed in the desert and experienced something beyond the manmade, something alien," I looked to Officer Beckett and the others, "Some people didn't make it back to England alive."

Adelaide did not appear shocked about what I had just shared with her, all this strange language spilling from my mouth, like an infinity pool sloshing over did not phase her. Was she expected unrest and killing to happen?

Adelaide nodded, "I am happy to help. Immanuel said this day would come some thirty years ago."

"Thirty years!" Jen added in disbelief like an echo from the walls.

Adelaide continued to speak as she walked past Kai and Beckett, "If you follow me, I will take you to the part of the bunker that you need to be in, a part that is off limits to the general public," Adelaide led us deeper into the bunker.

We finally reached an area that had a red rope tie across the walkway with golden metal rings at either end resting on golden hooks in the walls either side. Adelaide unhooked one end of the thick red velvety rope tie and let us all pass before re-hooking the rope tie on its rightful place, then she squeezed her way back through us all to the front as we all eagerly awaited a 'big reveal' in the theatrical style of Dr Immanuel Paley. What had they kept hidden for so long? Why was it important to hide whatever it was in a bunker of all places?

Adelaide stopped walking as our runway started to come to an end. "This is where you want to be," Adelaide stated, pointing at a very thick heavy looking door, one which made the entrance door look like a thin wafer. Officer Beckett nodded and made his way to the door and pulled down the large handle on the front and heaved the door out towards himself with some difficulty. A great screech rang out originating from the hinges of the door, which were under the vast weight of whatever material the door was made from, it sounded as if we had awoken a sleeping metal giant that had not stirred in any way for decades. The door ceased its groaning and Adelaide walked in and flicked a switch upwards. A dim white light lit the room, flickering at first, but then settling with a low humming once it had managed to process the command from the switch. There were several old chairs and tables inside, some covered with white sheets and others covered in spider webs open to the elements of the cold bunker, much to the spider's delight. In the far-left corner there was a huge brown crate. Adelaide moved over to the crate but made sure to stop five feet short of reaching it, "It is in here," she said as she pointed to the container. She picked up a crowbar that was hidden by dust and cobwebs, that has been laid up against the dark fold where the wall met the floor. Adelaide handed the crowbar to Kai. "You will need this," she said as she handed it over. She stepped further away from the box, facing the crate, with her back to the door.

As Adelaide backed away, and we all watched Jen asked, "Are we in any danger?"

"No, not at all dear," Adelaide replied offering us soothing words to make us more at ease, "There's nothing here that will hurt you." Kai pressed the crowbar between the front and left-hand side of the crate trying to find a place to wedge the tool in, followed by the right amount of pressure being applied. Then, came the sound of nails being ripped away from wood and the container opened. The wooden prised-open-door of the container fell to the floor with a dull thud, sending dust plumes into the air. We all covered our faces as best as we could, coughing and spluttering at the sudden disturbance of the small particles of dust, wood, and anything else that resided on the bunker floor.

Once the room had cleared slightly, we could all see a large hessian bag inside the container. It looked very full. But full of what? We were about to find out.

Officer Beckett edged forward and grabbed a pocketknife from his jacket. He cut a large slit down the front of the bag with some difficulty, as the material seemed quite thick, whereas the pocketknife was only dainty in comparison. Beckett pulled the ripped remains of the hessian bag back, and revealed a huge peculiar looking creature, that looked like some bizarre mutation or mythical creature of sorts. I wanted to avert my eyes, but my eyes were locked on this creature of their own accord, mesmerised by the bizarre nature of the thing. My brain was unable to classify what it was, but desperately wanted to categorise it in some way. Was it part of the lizard family? Was it from the deep depth of the ocean where the white man had not yet invaded to ruin some untouched natural 'unusual' beauty of the world?

"That…. That is what we saw," Lava said with a clear trembling detectable in her voice.

"It is, but this one isn't as blue, it's more of a grey colour," Jennifer added, "Is that because it is dead?" she asked as she turned to look at Adelaide. The large grey being's head was tilted against the side of the container still intact, standing up right, with two legs of sorts lent against the opposite side of the crate and four bizarre looking arms limply dangling before its large body. There appeared to be some sort of spikes just visible behind its large mass. Almost reminiscent of a hedgehog or perhaps a porcupine was a more appropriate comparison. It had these huge looking claw-like fingernails which sent shivers down my spine and two rather large eyes.

"How did you get this here?" Kai asked in amazement before Adelaide had time to answer Jen's question.

Adelaide looked at us all, then took one of the dusty chairs, wiping the seat with her hand. She placed it down carefully perching elegantly on its seat and started talking. "I moved here as a teenager, with my parents who were part of the Windrush generation, we all made our way to England from the Caribbean after the Second World War. I later met Immanuel, two years later to be precise. At that time, we were both fresh faced students, both 18, starting our studies at Durham University in 1952. We were both young, intelligently energised and were soon to be madly in love," she smiled as she spoke of love. "Immanuel has a brilliant mind, but he struggled with people's opinions about our love. Many tried to pass off Immanuel's love for me as the product of a brilliant quirky minded man who fell outside of their norms. Nevertheless, we ignored those who disagreed with our pairing. Immanuel would even pretend to be a heavy drinker at times, to swerve people's interrogation and avoid being severely angered by others prejudice. Immanuel wrote many papers and carried out teaching duties all over England for about five years before he decided it was time that we enjoyed a quiet life away from judging eyes. We moved to the Yorkshire countryside, feeling we had both achieved a great deal in a few short years of our careers. After all we were meant to be part of the sharpest and most brilliant minded top 10% of the population. We both continued to write when we made the move to a quieter life. Paley used his trust fund money to buy the house and land. We lived in a beautiful cottage, with four acres of land, with an enchanting wood out of the back of the property. Three years we lived there in somewhat bliss, before this came," she said as she pointed to the opened crate and the strange monster inside. I glanced back at the creature in the crate, still in awe, before returning my gaze to Adelaide.

Adelaide continued with her story, "It was a summers evening in the year 1962, a surprisingly hot night in comparison to the usual temperatures we experience here. Immanuel and I had just watched a beautiful sunset outside and then slipped into bed with the windows open, which only provided a very slight breeze. There was a strange noise outside in the middle of the night that woke both of us. A sound that we were not used to in our then picturesque surroundings. The noise was in stark contrast to the natural chirpings and rustlings of the wildlife and the trees swaying each evening. This commotion, well it sounded like the crunching of metal. I thought it might have been someone crashing their car. Immanuel quickly sprung out of bed and pulled the thin window curtain back to look. He couldn't really see much at first apart from a small plume of smoke. We thought it best that one of us stayed in the house. So, Immanuel made his way down the stairs once he had pulled on his dressing gown. I whispered to him to be careful. I peered out of the window waiting for him to open the back door and emerge in my view, in the outdoors. A minute later, there he was making his way out into the night, in his wellington boots and a light jacket pulled over his dressing gown. Despite it being a clear night, with clear skies I was struggling to see Immanuel as he faded further from the property. About ten minutes passed, which at the time felt like an eternity. I reassured myself that Immanuel would rush back, to call the emergency services if the noise had been the indicator that someone had been badly hurt. Nevertheless, I made my way downstairs and was pulling my coat over my nightdress, with the back door open, when I heard Immanuel shout 'Adi, come quickly,' I rushed to pull my boots on and made my way outside. 'Where are you?' I called. 'Over here,' I heard a voice coming from over near the edge of the wood. I made my way over in a quickened walk but tried to remain level-headed and logical as I paced it out towards the tree line. Immanuel was knelt, knelt over that creature," Adelaide tilted her head in the direction of the crate. She continued, "There was a melded mess of metal to the right-hand side of the creature that night, gleaming, scorching. The creature wasn't moving but must have either managed to crawl away or must have been thrown from the crashed heap of glowing metal. I say metal, but it was unlike any I had ever laid eyes on. Immanuel's eyes were wide with excitement when he looked up at me. I was shocked and somewhat horrified by what laid before us but tried to hide it. He told me the creature had been alive when he reached it. He said he touched it, and it showed him things. Things he found he understood and others he found hard to compute. He tried to explain, in a rushed sense of elation, what he had been shown. It did not make sense to me. I felt he was on a high of some sort, almost in a hallucinate state, like he had been taking some sort of recreational drug." Adelaide shook her head, more to herself than to us and then continued, "He was never the same man after that night. He was no longer the man I had fallen madly and deeply in love with. In the weeks that followed he became maddeningly obsessed with the constellations, the weird and the wonderful, and what, to me, seemed to be the nonsensical. The man who was so logical, bright, and well informed, turned into a fantasist. He would spend hours upon hours in his study and would forget to eat. I had to remind him to do the simplest of tasks, like shower, eat, drink, and I would often try to tell him that he needed to sleep. He kept the body of the creature in our small barn for months and would spend hours at a time visiting its body in there. After about five months of this changed behaviour, he announced he would be going on a trip for several weeks. I was relieved that he would be leaving the farm and hoped it would help provide him with some clarity, to snap him out of his trance like state. At points, I had started to become a little wary in his presence. I was still unsure what that creature had done to him. When he returned from the trip, he was insistent he needed to hide the creature. He started to call the creature Anhur. Somehow, with his connections, he managed to move Anhur quietly. And that's how it ended up here. After Immanuel had hidden Anhur I was hoping, foolishly, that our life would return to its equilibrium. However, that was wishful thinking on my part. There was no wearing off process. Our relationship broke down and we parted ways. When I left, I wrote Immanuel a letter and left the necklace with it." Adelaide pointed at me, homing in on the chain around my neck more specifically.

"How come you work here now then? If you hate this thing- Anhur- so much, and what it did, why help Paley? Why protect this things body?" Jen asked.

Adelaide took a few seconds to respond, as she was most probably having to process sharing her past with us, a story I can imagine she had rarely shared, if at all with another human being. "Well, Immanuel has been the only man I have truly loved, and we were in each other's lives at such crucial ages in our lives and loved so deeply. No one else has come close to emulating that love with me, that love Immanuel and I shared for all those years. Immanuel contacted me about a year and a half ago saying that a researcher had been enquiring about his life's work and that he was worried about whether he could trust her. He was worried she may share information with the wrong people, the authorities. He persuaded me to come and work here to try and ensure that anyone who looked suspicious, perhaps a military person, was vetted and to make sure the creature was not revealed to those who would desecrate Anhur's body. For some reason, Immanuel feels protective over Anhur's corpse. I am not sure why. Sometimes, when he would return to the house from out barn, all those years ago, his expression was a mix of pity and adoration. As if he was facing an internal conflict."

Dr Derwent stepped forward and addressed Adelaide, "We will do our best to protect Anhur, and make sure its body is treated in a respectful way. We cannot leave it here; we need to get its body to a laboratory. We need to make sure that we know what we are up against. Other creatures of this species do not appear to be as friendly as Anhur."

Kai added to Dr Derwent's sentiments, "It is necessary to look over the biological make-up of Anhur. We will do so respectfully, for Dr Immanuel. It is essential that we pinpoint any weaknesses that these creatures may have. So far, we have been playing a guessing game, and always been far too many steps behind these things. These communication pods, or what we believed to be communication pods until we entered one, are seemingly full of these creatures. They pose a real threat, and it feels as if we are in the calm before the storm right now."

Adelaide furrowed her brow for a moment, taking her time to think. Then she nodded. Seemingly in agreement with what Dr Derwent and Kai had to say.

"How come there was only one, only Anhur?" Lava asked, "Why was it on its own? Was it accidentally left here or dropped at too much of a high speed?"

Adelaide looked over at Lava. "Immanuel said something about Anhur being alone, for now, almost as if he was sent as an outreach post holder. Immanuel would mumble about Anhur being unable to breath, bumbling on about atmospheric pressures and temperatures and saying hushed things under his breath, things like max briop."

"Max Briop," I interrupted, as the mention of the name, or what Paley had used as a name.

Adelaide's gaze left Lava and dashed to look in my direction.

"Have you heard that before?" she asked.

"Yes, Paley was asking me and Mayola to call him that when we went to see him in London. It seems to be an anagram for Proxima B," I replied.

Adelaide looked surprised. She looked down at the ground and as if talking to herself revealed, "I tried to understand, I did. I even went out to the barn one day and touched Anhur's body, in the hopes I could understand Immanuel, understand what had happened to him. What had been revealed I would never know. Immanuel said I could not understand, even by touching Anhur's body, because he was gone, he was dead. It wasn't easy to walk away from what we had." Adelaide looked up, and at the chain around my neck once again, as if remembering times gone by.

Dr Derwent looked vacant, like he was somewhere else in his mind. As if he was trying to carry out some mental strategizing. He then came back into the room, mentally re-entering the present and grabbed one of the round folded tables lent against the wall. He set it down and opened it out in front of where Adelaide was sat. He motioned for us all to do as Adelaide had done, to grab chairs, dust them down and to sit.

As we all began to sit Dr Derwent began to speak, "It would make sense that perhaps Anhur's kind sent it down to Earth to see if it was feasible for more of the creatures to land and survive on the planet?"

"Well, did it die from natural causes, or the crash, or will we never know?" Jen asked.

Beckett answered her, "No look" he motioned towards Anhur's body, "There are evidently wounds that the creature sustained on impact, from the crash. It seems as if its body is badly injured. And that thing around its neck, it looks like some sort of monitoring device. It could be to do with its heart rate maybe, that is if it has one." We all looked over and the device did seem to look to us like what a human would interpret to be a monitoring band of sorts.

We all sat for a moment trying to soak in the new information. Being inside the bunker with Anhur's body was surreal. So bizarre. Beckett broke the silence after a while, when the conversation seemed to come to a natural end, "Well, we best go back up. We need to figure out how to transport this thing quietly and get it to a lab where we can trust the people running it."

Kai nodded, "There are a few people I know, contacts I have at a small lab in Liverpool."

"Ok, great," Officer Beckett boomed as he got up from his chair and started to fold the table away and return it to where Dr Derwent had grabbed it from, "Once we are out of here and have a signal, I will see who I can contact for transport."

We all made our way back through the corridors and made sure the heavy blast door was shut properly, the door that was acting as the gateway to Anhur's tomb. As we emerged from the bunker we breathed in the fresh air.

However, what we were not expecting was to be met by familiar faces. Outside the main entrance to the war bunker stood Agent Riley and Agent Vox. And with them stood, half a dozen plain clothed police officers. I quickly turned to look at Adelaide. She looked at me and nodded, as if to say, "It's going to be OK."

Adelaide took the lead and explained to the agents that we had come to see her, to inform her of what had happened to Immanuel, as she had been his university sweetheart. She tried in any way possible to distract from what was hidden away in the dark depths of the shelter below. I knew at that point we were all praying that Agent Riley, Agent Vox and their gang wouldn't get their mitts on Anhur's body. There was little chance of them being careful and respecting his corpse. From what Adelaide had told us Dr Paley would be horrified if he thought Anhur had been snatched by government hands.