The tunnels were not entirely dark.At every hundred feet or at the intersection with cross-passages were small squares of permanent red light.The mechanism that produced the illumination was driven by the difference in temperature between the hot, stale air and the cold pipes of running water that ran behind the walls.The glow was not weak and, as their senses adjusted to the conditions, it was almost too bright an illumination for them.

Numbers were stenciled next to the panel -- the throwback did not stop to glance at the digits, rather, he touched the bass-relief of the markings as he passed.The miniature signs seemed to indicate what path to take.

The young lion paid careful attention and took detailed mental notes of everything -- or almost everything -- that the big cat did.He managed to keep track of those unusual numbers that the dim aura barely revealed.He was also mindful to make as little noise as possible.The bottom of the tunnel was flooded with an inch of runoff from the past storm and both Thunderians did not want their feet to splash the water for the sound of it would have been too distracting.

The air was hot and humid and as they descended deeper and deeper into the underworld the atmosphere around them became more and more unbearable.A mist or slight fog clung to the walls of the passage -- it had a very distinctive and foul odor.It was not one thing specifically that reeked of rot, it was a ghastly blend of things too unpleasant to want to linger.Unused to that, Kara found himself time and time again resisting the urge to wretch.He wanted to be strong, not out of a need to impress Pumalo but because he was a Thundercat.

To whom much was given, much was expect and he was determined to live up to the highest standards of the code of Thundera, come what may.

At a certain point, far too entrenched in that subterranean to reckon by normal, topside terms, the two found themselves at an intersection unlike all that others that had come before.It was silent and pitch black, the air was cool and vented from what must have been an immensely tall ceiling.But it was the silence, the quietude that struck them as highly unusual and filled their mannerisms with a newfound sense of urgency.

“I see a red glow ahead,” the puma whispered to the lion-cub.

He walked closely next to the throwback and used the radiating heat of his body to guide him.For the most part he stayed in step but miscalculated one -- “Ahhh!” he screamed as he plummeted through a hole he had had no clue was there, a mere inches from his feet.

“Kara!” the puma threw himself to the ground and reached into the gaping break.“Kara!”

Out of breath and yet relieved that he was still alive he responded:“I’m here -- I’m -- I grabbed onto -- something --”

“Can you see my hand?”

The youngster looked up -- he saw the rotating blades of a fan high above and gulped nervously at the realization that there was another turning frame just under him.He saw, too, another moving blob in the shadow.“I can see it, let me try to reach --” he tried to use his feet to help prop himself closer to the emerging form.

“Let me get lower, wait, wait.”He angled his right, upper body over the edge of the chasm, the rising currents fretting his mane.He swung his fist gently until it brushed against the cub’s flesh -- he wrapped his fingers around what he had cough.

“My arm --”

“Grab onto me as hard as you can.”He felt the youth’s hands clasp around his elbow and his face press on his biceps.Almost with no effort he lifted the lion from the hole to the solid ground of the passage.

As soon as he realized that they were both safe, he stopped under the glow of a red, numbered light panel and hugged the youngster.He had seen many of his kind succumb to worser fates, many enough to make him indifferent to death.But the lion-cub had awoken in him a sort of humanity he thought he had lost long ago -- and it not just Kara, Caesar, too, had a touch and attention that --

“Why did you do that?” he asked.He craved closeness, yes, but though he found the puma utterly masculine in appeal, he was not attracted to him that way.

“I almost lost you there, cub,” he answered, his gruff voice scarcely hiding a deeper sentiment.

“I owe you my life, thank you.”That time he hugged the throwback, finding in his arms something he had never known from his father.

“Stop that now, cub, I’m not worth it, I know it.”He sighed.“We’re almost there.”He pointed to the end of the tunnel where a faint, gray smoke and full, white light poured in.

Kara was lucky in a way, his ordeal had smeared him and his clothes with so much filth that he could blend easily into that world with little effort.Indeed, had it not been for his face and smallish figure, he would have been indistinguishable from the natives -- that said, it was not as if he was a small, frail creature by any means, but that compared to Pumalo he had the build and stature of an insect.He was also fortunate in that the individual relay stations were themselves isolated in separate alcoves.

“Keep your head down,” the puma advised.“Act like you’re back is sore -- they’ll not suspect you as much if the lights are dim.”

The two filed past open alcoves where workers toiled over their own parts of the large machine.One cubbyhole was empty and dark -- they entered it.The lights turned on automatically, the apparatus whizzed in a series of ringing bells.

“Just sit back and watch,” he said, as he grabbed a pair of levers in his hands.“This shift ends in about three hours.”He grinned at the youngster as he began his work.

The relay station was considered an ‘upscale’ job in the hierarchy that the underworld society had created.Pumalo was to enjoy the privilege of working there until the tiger, whose duty it was at the time of that shift, fully recovered from his burns in the hospital.The reason that mundane drudgery was consider so cushy was that it had the remotest chance of death-on-the-job.

The apparatus was necessary because, inevitably, a power station somewhere would overheat or have to go off line forwhile.The demand for electricity also changed from place to place and time to time.So it was the job of the relay operator to reroute the flow of electricity from where it was not needed, to where it was necessary.

The machine itself had the appearance of an overgrown clock face, five feet in diameter.It had a ring of lights and numbers around its outer perimeter and two arms that were connected to the center.The arms were of equal length with points at their tips and could only rotate about a semicircle, each arm for each half of the ‘disk.’When a light flashed and a buzzer sounded the corresponding arm had to be moved so that its arrow tip pointed to it.The pace tended to be slow but every so often the tempo increased substantially.

All the while Kara leaned back on the wall and watched attentively, almost adoringly.He wondered for a moment what his father did at his job, when ever he had gone up to see him -- the only times he had any interaction with the old lion -- he would be sitting at his desk.It was just a thought, no more, no less and it passed almost as suddenly as it had occurred to him.

The puma tired -- he wiped away the sweat off of his brow with the back of his arm, careful not to disturb the site of his bandages.

“Let me do that,” the lion-cub volunteered, approaching the relay station.

The deformed puma let the youth take the spinning arms and watched where he stood as the youngster worked.He was amused at how quickly he had gotten the feel for it and was equally impressed by his stamina.

“I can turn you into one of us yet,’ he added a wry laugh as he grasped the teenager’s shoulder.

“How long have you been down here?” the would-be Thundercat asked.

“All my life,” Pumalo sat himself at the base of the far wall, away from the alcove’s entrance.“I’m not sure exactly how long it’s been.I stopped counting my number of shifts after I reached a thousand.It just wasn’t worth it.”

Sparks arced in the main chamber -- it cast bright, green shadows in the small room the two were in.

“Don’t worry about that -- just lightning.We get it all the time.”

Kara had paused for a moment -- he had felt the tingle of a current course through his fingertips -- but reassured, he resumed undaunted.

The humid air soon got so hot that the lion felt sure he was going to collapse.He was not getting enough oxygen and so he slumped forward, supported by the rotating arms.He had slowed down drastically, too.The puma took the helm of the device and let the lion-cub slunk back to the corner to recover from the strenuous activity, the deceptively laborious job that he had neither the training nor the built-up resolve to perform.

“That’s all right, don’t worry yourself about it -- you weren’t made to live here.”

He nodded to Pumalo, trying to regain his composure.