After nearly 8 hours’ sleep, Vladimir, a blond 11-year-old, wakes his younger brother Rush, who could for all we know be his twin since no one knows his real age. It is completely dark inside the oil pipe and the echo of their voices again makes them feel they are not alone. Oil still impregnates the piping and the fumes keep the boys in a state of constant stupefaction. This, allied with their very definite objective, results in an obsessive need to carry on, to keep moving forward. Rush says his stomach is hurting. They breakfast on the multivitamin drink and Vladi says, Do you hear that? Voices, not just the echoes of ours? No, says Rush, I can’t hear anything. Come on, Rush, listen again. Okay, yeah, there is something, but it’s inside our ears—my ears hurt. No, no, look—point the light at the roof. The beam from the lantern shows what is clearly an escape hatch, circular and with foldable steps leading up to it. One stands on the other’s shoulders and they wind open the steps. Vladimir goes first, gingerly turning the handle on the cover and peering out. It seems to be the lobby of a large hotel, deserted. He lifts his brother up and the astonished pair run to the doors of the hotel entrance, which they find shut. The double-glazed windows, also. Looking out through the windows, they see a steppe of brown earth and piled snow, dotted as far as the horizon by antennae and radio and television towers; the sun is coming up. There is also a portable radio in the foyer, emitting the foreign voice they had caught faint snatches of down in the oil pipe. It takes them a number of hours to explore the whole building—the main rooms, the spaces for video screenings, the dining rooms and soundproofed areas with display cabinets full of Parchís boards propped on their sides. They pass a bathroom and the younger boy says, My tummy really hurts, I’m going to the toilet. Me, too. A few minutes later they come out of their respective stalls, first Vladi, then Rush, holding 1cm-long lead capsules, which they hold under running water and then open. A two-tone pill inside reads: “Iodine-125 [125I] Radioactive.” Without a word, each places his pill in his mouth and washes it back down with water. They go through to the kitchens and open canned meats, milk, jams of 4 different colors, eating and drinking their fill before subsiding onto a sofa in one of the rooms where there is a television and a digital clock, neither of which they can understand. The radio wakes them after 9 hours. They eat again and hurry back down into the oil pipe. Before closing the hatch and continuing with the journey, Vladi takes a look at himself in the glass roof, the last time he will see a reflection of his own eyes. His brother just gets going.