<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #80BFFF"><span style="font-size: 150%; line-height: 116%;">Peter Halvardson</span><br/><span style="font-size: 120%; line-height: 116%;">'The Viking'</span></span></div><br/><br/><div style="text-align: justify;">The kiss would have probably lasted a lot longer, so sweet and desperate it was at the same time, if not a blarring sound suddenly ripped through the small room. Peter immediately broke the kiss, not without his hand squeezing her body and he walked to a small box on the wall and opened it. The sound was distant and synthetic, but it was just the effect of the outdated communication device.<br/><br/><span style="color: #80FF00">"Emergency control here. Checking on status. How many people are with you? Did you lose anyone?"</span><br/><br/>Peter took a deep breath before answering. His face was slightly distorted from the pain.<br/><br/><span style="color: #FF8000">"Sole 65, shaft 5 collapsed in the area between working place and safe room. Both workers, Peter Halvardson and Ali...ahem...Sandra Lawson got out just in time. We have no idea if the tunnel is still passable to the lift. But we will check after we made sure that we aren't injured, well, not more than some minor injuries anyway. Did you get contact to shaft 2 and 8? 2 would be Bull, 8 is Thomas Avidal. Nobody else working on sole 65. Any news from the other soles?"</span><br/><br/>There was a moment of silence, when both Peter and Alice held her breath, then the distant voice returned.<br/><br/><span style="color: #80FF00">"I haven't checked the other shafts yet. I come back to you once I have. We are still working on getting in the information. It looks like soles 55 to 62 collapsed partially. No known casualties on 55 to 60, the roof collapsed near the lift were nobody was working at that time, the deeper parts are still intact, but the tunnels are blocked. It will take some days until we get to them. No contact to 61 and 62 yet, the signal strength is very low, we assume that some of the repeaters got destroyed. It could mean that the whole sole collapsed or the working area is intact and we simply can't connect. We will send an expert team down, once we are sure that it is safe."</span><br/><br/>The voice died and Peter returned to Alice. He turned his left side into the light and gritted his teeth, when he touched his ribs. Damn that hurt.<br/><br/><span style="color: #FF8000">"So far, so bad. Better check me out, we may need to move soon. I guess Thomas made it to his safe room, as it is located a little closer than ours, but I worry about Bull. The lift will be out of work for some time, so it is up to us to get to them."</span><br/><br/>And then his eyes got soft, when he looked at her. His voice was full of worry.<br/><br/><span style="color: #FF8000">"How are you, Alice? Truthfully, no silly jokes now..."</span></div>