“I wonder how we haven’t crashed yet with your flying!”

“Oh, gee... I wonder what kind of cartographer gets you lost over Russia!”

“I told you! The map I found is outdated and besides the snow outside, I can’t see anything else. It was your idea to fly to Russia!”

“Hey Kanazawa, did you know these planes were used by kamikaze pilots in World War 2?”

“What’s a ‘kamikaze’ pilot Ishii?”

“I can show you if you don’t shut up and get our headings right!”

Flying an old ‘Yokosuka D4Y3’ plane they found in an old museum block in the city, Ishii managed to fix it along with Kanazawa’s help and took off just hours ago. They were flying over Russia as her dream to finally escape the city was a success. However, for many miles, since they arrived over Russian airspace, they weren’t able to find anything down there, just a barren wasteland full of snow.

Back at the huge city by some blind luck, Kanazawa and Ishii found each other on their journey and roamed the layers of the city together looking for food and supplies. Hungry and exhausted they managed to find an old museum of airplanes and just barely any supplies to help them through. Looking at the old airplane designs, Ishii thought that they could both fix one of the sturdier planes and in theory, it should be able to fly again. Her design managed to snap into several pieces and crashed just after takeoff, but these planes looked more conventional and in the past were able to fly. After several months of hard work, Ishii finally managed to fix and even start one of the planes, soon after both of them decided to fly out of the city.

Ishii was finally able to fulfill her dream.

“Hey, I think we are somewhere over ‘Komsomolsk’, I can see the river and nothing else,” Kanazawa replied over his communication helmet as he looked through the map and anything outside to pinpoint their correct positions.

“I really have no idea where we are flying though, but I haven't been this excited for years.” Ishii with a wide smile kept her hands on the controls, flying the plane steadily. “However, I think we have to land soon, we don't have much fuel left.”

“Oh hey... Ishii! There! Look at your right - do you see that?” Kanazawa spoke to her as he looked through the window scanning the horizon. 

“Yes... I think we should land there before we really 'kamikaze' to the ground!”

“Again... what’s a kamikaze?” Kanazawa asked her but to no reply. She had her mind focused on carefully landing the plane on the snow.

Just as they landed, she could clearly see what those objects covered in the snow were. About 20 different kinds of plane designs that she had seen before in an aviation book, parked close to each other. These planes belonged to designs from the 21st century. It seems like they were also in another blind luck situation and found an old abandoned airfield, hopefully, there will still be leftover fuel to start the plane again and fly.

Parking close by she turned off the motor and opened the hatch to the cold outside. Covering herself with her jacket she walked out of the plane and turned to Kanazawa who followed right behind her. 

"It's so much colder than in the city."

“So... what do we do now? We look for fuel or - ?” Kanazawa asked her as she turned around to scan out their surroundings. Besides the planes, there was nothing else visible in the distance, not even a hangar or any kind of structure. It was all covered in snow as far as the eyes could see.

“These planes really look well preserved, Kanazawa. And they are of more modern design than the old World War 2 machines we found. I'd say these were from the 21st century.” Ishii replied as she moved closer to one of the planes.

The airplane was a large war machine that could fly thousands of miles before it needed to refuel. It could also have been an early electric machine model but she had no way of knowing unless she boarded the plane and checked it out. She felt that they could switch to this airplane if they found no fuel. It looked a lot sturdier, even for longer journeys.

“Maybe we could check the interior if I know how to open it!” Ishii replied trailing her hand through the hull of the plane.

Once they figured out how to open the door of the plane, behind them about 8 masked individuals in white winter clothes appeared out of nowhere and had them surrounded with old-style weapons in their hands.

“STOY!” one of the men who seemed to be their leader from the group shouted at them.

Both Kanazawa and Ishii put up their hands startled by the 8 masked figures pointing guns at them. “Kto ty?” the men appeared to be speaking a language they couldn’t understand.

“Huh what? What did you say?” Ishii asked him, still with her hands up in her air.

“Chto eto za yazyk?”

“Chto u nikh s glazami?”

“Bozhe moy, kak vy dumayete, oni iz drugoy strany?”

“We don’t understand you! Who are you?” Kanazawa asked them as he still had his hands up in the air.

“Of course, we don’t understand them and they won’t understand us, you idiot! If it wasn’t for you we wouldn’t have been in this mess!”

“Hey I might have saved us or we would have crashed, you are the idiot, moron!”

“Stupid, shithead!”

“Dumb foureyed bi- “

“ZATKNIS’!” one of the men shouted at both of them as they abruptly stopped arguing. “My dolzhny vzyat’ ikh s robotom-interpretatorom.” the man spoke again as he turned to the person standing close to him “Misha, prover’ ikh na oruzhiye.”

The other person was a girl in her mid 20’s who moved towards them checking both of them for weapons. She pulled a pistol from Kanazawa and turned to him saying “Izvinite, ya dam eto vam pozzhe.” Ishii had no weapons on her.

“Idi za mnoy!” one of the men from the group motioned to them to follow him, but still they were cautious of the two strange people that just landed in an ancient machine, and kept aiming their weapons at them.

Walking through the barren wasteland just close to where the planes were one of the men waved at something close by and suddenly the ground came alive. A huge blast door opened revealing a metallic hallway inside. The group and their prisoners walked inside as the door closed behind them.

° ° °

“Well, what do you think they will do with us now?” Kanazawa asked as both of them were sitting down in a room. A guard outside stood by and watched them carefully as he kept quiet.

“Well, so far they didn’t kill us and they brought us this really tasty warm tea.” Ishii calmly replied as she sipped on the tea.

“Oh and did you see their eyes, they look really different than us! I think they are Russians, Ishii.”

“Gee, thanks I wouldn’t have figured that out!” she replied, still sipping on the tea but she kept checking out the guard. “I think that guard is a welcome sight, I had to look at your sad face for months now!”

“Pffff...” Kanazawa replied with mild annoyance. “As if they would like a four-eyed nuisance like you!”

“I really wish I 'kamikazed' us to the ground now!” Ishii replied as she rolled her eyes, still sipping on her warm tea.

“Oh cmon, tell me what the hell is a kamikaze?”

Opening the door of their room, one of the women from earlier walked inside and spoke to someone outside. “Oni zdes’, vy dumayete, chto mozhete ikh ponyat’?”

“YA zaprogrammirovan na 7111 yazykakh - ya uveren, chto ponimayu ikh, Misha - spasibo.” they heard another voice in Russian, but it seemed to have spoken in a monotonic, almost robotic voice.

With a few mechanical sounds, a robot just like some they have seen back in their city walked inside the room. Both Ishii and Kanazawa looked at him with a puzzled looks. The robot seemed to have stopped for a second to look and scan them and suddenly it spoke.

“Konichiwa - from my DNA scans you seem to have traveled from a city formerly known as Japan.”

With a puzzled look, Ishii got up from the chair and looked at the robot. “Wait... you speak Japanese?”

“That is correct - I also can speak and understand 7111 different languages - Could you tell us your names?”

“I am Ishii and that over there is Kanazawa.”

“Ishii - Kanazawa - Don’t worry you are safe here - We didn’t know that there are other survivors out there anymore - There are about three million five hundred sixty-five citizens in this unit and the main language spoken here is Russian - This is the first time we see someone from a different country in hundreds of years.”

“It wasn’t just us, back in Japan there were two unfortunate girls that were left in the city. I don’t know what happened to them but I hope they are safe.” Ishii replied as Kanazawa still with a confused face kept looking at the robot.

“Wait! There are that many people living here?!” he asked.

“That is correct - Our Biodome was a successful experimental however we lost connection with the other ‘Biodome’ around the world many years ago - after the great wars people moved into the Biodome for safety - but one day we plan to move to the ground and rebuild our cities."

“That is amazing!” Kanazawa replied as he stared at the robot. “But what is this place?”

“We can show you and if you ever decide to live here with us, you are welcome to stay.”

Both Ishii and Kanazawa together with the guards and the robot moved toward an elevator. One of the guards pressed a button and with a slight mechanical sound, it started moving downwards.

They could see what the robot meant about ‘living’ here.

The world underneath suddenly lit up with an ‘artificial’ sun. The underground world looked almost unbelievable with huge pillars, structures, houses, and even skyscrapers that went up to the ceiling. It seemed like there was another world underneath the one that was ravaged above.

“Wow!” Ishii exclaimed with her eyes wide open as she held Kanazawa’s hand closer. “So... you still want to fly away from here because I kinda want to stay... Ishii...”

“Ishii - Kanazawa - Welcome to ‘Lenski Stolbovi Experimental Unit’”

(THE END)

(LATEST REVISION: 12th December 2022)