Something had changed in the half a dozen days or so since they’d last looked outside.
Something was different; both agreed on that.
What they couldn’t decide, though, was exactly what it was.
Josie suggested, “Maybe it’s just the sky, playing tricks on us. Maybe it’s later in the day than it was last time and the time before that.”
“No, honey. It was the same time of day, right after we had lunch, when we came out here before.”
Frank knew something significant had happened since the last time they were here.
Frank’s background was as a police officer, and he had a lot of years under his belt.
Policemen are trained to pay attention to details. For it’s the minute details which can bust a case right open and create a new lead.
Many a bad guy found himself in prison not because he’d made a mistake, but rather because a policeman was paying close attention to his surroundings.
And it went farther than that.
Many policemen’s lives were saved because they noticed the type of gun being fired at them. And because they carefully counted each and every shot the bad guy took.
And because they knew when it was safe to expose themselves and return fire.
Frank studied the scene in front of them, one section at a time on an invisible grid only he could see.
It took him only half a minute before he solved the puzzle.
“Those colored patches on top of the snow,” he finally said. “They’re larger than they were the last time.”
“The colored patches? Oh, you mean the tops of the cars’ roofs.
“You’re right, Frank. They are larger than they were before. And more colorful too.”
“They’re more colorful because the layer of ice covering them has thinned quite a bit.
“And they’re larger because the snow pack beneath them has melted a bit. More of each roof is exposed than it was before.”
“But how is that possible, Frank? If the temperature out here never goes above freezing then how…”
“But it has, honey. It has gone above freezing, at least for a little while. Otherwise the ice sheet wouldn’t have melted, the snow pack wouldn’t have receded a bit.”
“Do you think it’s melting now?”
“No, baby. It’s much too cold now.
“But sometime in the last few days the temperature must have risen slightly above freezing, probably just a couple of degrees above and probably just for a few hours.
“What day is this, do you know?”
“No, I don’t. I lost track of the days a long time ago. Keeping track doesn’t seem as important as it once did.
“I have the sense it’s summer. Late summer, maybe the end of July or early August.
“Hell, I don’t know, honey. I might be off by a mile. It might be Christmas Day, for all I know.”
“No. It’s definitely not Christmas time.”
Frank had no clear idea what day it was either.
But he hadn’t been locked up in the huge warehouse for several years as Josie had.
Far too long for his own liking, sure. But not so long he didn’t know whether it was winter or summer.
“I’m pretty sure it’s mid-to-late August,” he said.
“I’d call it a pretty safe bet that sometime in the last few days we experienced the hottest day of the year.
“I think it’s very likely that hottest day took us just north of freezing, and we enjoyed some balmy temperatures of maybe thirty four or thirty five degrees. Probably just for a few hours, probably at the hottest time of day, around two o’clock in the afternoon.”
Josie was visibly disappointed and didn’t mind expressing it.
“Oh, pooh! So you mean now that the hottest day of the year is gone that we’re stuck on freezing again for another year?”
Frank was the eternal optimist. His glass was always half full, compared to Josie’s being half empty.
“Well that’s one way to put it, Debbie Downer.
“Or you could look at it another way. The thaw has officially begun. This year we only had a few hours of it. But from now on it’ll progress pretty fast.
“Next year we might have three or four weeks of thaw. Maybe longer.
“The year after that it’ll likely be half a year or better.”
“So, Frank… what do we do with this information? Do we share it with the others?”
“No. Not quite yet. For now we sit on it and keep it to ourselves.
“At least until we make firm plans on what’s best for us.”
-24-
Marty was right when he exclaimed, “This changes everything!”
And not just for him and his lot. But rather for everyone, regardless of who they were and where they were riding out the storm.
Knowing that the thaw had started and would be far more significant in the following year did wonders to brighten everyone’s spirits.
It told them they were closer to the light at the end of the tunnel than anyone had realized.
And that perhaps they were past the halfway point. That they were closer to getting out of the cold and welcoming warmer days ahead than they were to the day they’d shuttered themselves off from the frozen earth.
The knowledge the thaw had started brightened everyone’s spirits.
And it took the pressure off of so many people who might have been worrying they didn’t prepare well enough. That maybe they hadn’t stocked enough food, or water, or fuel.
The people hidden in the mining tunnels beneath Salt Mountain had worried from the beginning.
Sure, they had things most people didn’t. That was true.
Things like living stock… cattle and pigs and poultry and even wild deer.
Managed properly, it was an unending source of protein.
They had other things as well, including a tiny pond made from a ten thousand gallon rubber water bladder once belonging to the United States Army.
The Army once used the bladder to store drinking water in the deserts of Afghanistan and Iraq. After years of service, though, the bladder was so stricken by wear and tear it could no longer reliably store such a precious commodity without leaking a considerable amount onto the parched sands beneath it.
It was retired and sold at an Army surplus action; Bryan was able to purchase the monstrosity for a mere two hundred dollars.
It didn’t bother Bryan that it was patched in a dozen places.
He put the better half on the bottom in the back of Bay 12 and cut the rest away.
Then he used a front end loader to unceremoniously dump eight tons of South Texas red dirt into the center of what was now essentially a huge rubber swimming pool.
But this pool wasn’t for swimming. At least not for human swimmers.
After Bryan added several thousand gallons of non-chlorinated water it became home for several species of fish. Mostly catfish and perch, with some bass thrown in for good measure.
And that wasn’t all. He also threw four hundred crayfish; more commonly known as crawdads, into the pool to frolic in the mud.
Two large sunlamps set by timer to shine on the water fourteen hours per day promoted the spread of algae, which provided a food source.
After that, the fish and the creepy crawlers pretty much took care of themselves.
So the people in the mine had that.
They also had a small greenhouse in which a variety of plants was always growing.
The number of plants in the greenhouse was rather small, for its main purpose wasn’t to add significantly to the food supply.
The main purpose of the greenhouse was to provide the occupants with a continually rotating and therefore continually viable source of seeds to plant after the thaw was complete and they finally emerged.
Still, it was inevitable that the greenhouse contribute in a small way to the mine’s overall food stores.
For once the seeds of a tomato or squash or cucumber were
harvested there was still a considerable amount left to eat.
The original forty one people who went into the mine
had grown, both by birth and by adoption of additional friends and strangers.
There were forty five now, and although they had food sources others only dreamed of there was always the worry that they hadn’t stocked enough.
That they hadn’t considered everything.
That they hadn’t done their math correctly.
The day before the thaw there was plenty of worry to go around.
Proof the thaw was coming changed all that.
A burden was lifted off everyone’s shoulders.
They’d worried they might not have enough food for five winters below the mountain.
But certainly they had enough for three.
Or, they all hoped, just two.
Now Hannah and Mark’s worries shifted.
For survivors of the two greatest catastrophes ever experienced by man would always worry about something.
It was now in their nature to do so.
Hannah and Mark would be worriers for the rest of their lives. In all likelihood their children would be as well.
“Should we contact that attorney for Colonel Medley and Colonel Wilcox?”
Mark just looked at her.
Almost like she’d grown another head.
“Honey, why on earth would you want to do that? And how would you get hold of them anyway? Didn’t they contact you last time through an old friend?”
“Well, first of all to tell them I might be able to come and testify for them after all. I mean, if it thaws next summer for even a few days, the highways should be clear enough to get to San Antonio and back.
“As for your second question, yes. That’s how Captain Wright contacted me initially. But that was only because he didn’t know our radio frequency at the time. He called back a few days later and gave me his own frequency. One that the base command post monitors. He said the command post can get a message to him.”
“You never told me that.”
“Are you sure? Well, I didn’t intentionally keep it from you.”
“Uh huh.”
“What do you mean, uh huh?”
“Maybe you’ve developed feelings for this Captain Wright dude. Maybe you think he looks like some movies star or something.
“Well, he doesn’t, okay? I have it on pretty good authority he’s a geek. A geek who’s balding prematurely and has a nose three sizes too large for his face.”
Hannah smiled.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Actually I like guys with large noses.”
“In that case I misspoke. I meant to say his nose was three sizes too small for his face.”
She smiled again, this time mischievously.
“Oh, baby. That’s the other thing that turns me on. A guy with a way-too-small nose who’s balding prematurely. It doesn’t get any better than that.”
Mark started to say something witty and clever but she cut him off.
She ran her fingers down the side of his face and whispered in his ear.
“You know what else I find incredibly sexy?”
The soft touch of her fingers was almost too much for him to bear.
He swallowed hard and said, “No, honey. What?”
“I just love it when you’re jealous for absolutely no reason. That’s the sexiest thing you could possibly say or do.”
“What do you mean?”
“Baby, you know my heart and soul belong to you. Nobody else but you. Not in the whole wide world.”
He sighed, though she wasn’t sure it was from relief or exasperation.
He paused to collect his thoughts and then asked, “So you’ll do anything for me?”
“Not quite, but almost.”
“Let’s keep the whole thaw thing to ourselves. I mean, they’re on a military base. I’m sure they have a weather center that monitors such things and that they probably already know.
“But in case they don’t let’s just keep it to ourselves for now, okay?”
-25-
Actually, Mark was only partially right.
Joint Base Lackland did indeed have a weather center.
In the years leading up to Saris 7 it was manned by a group of very talented and very well-educated meteorologists. It even had its own Doppler radar system which tracked storms for entire southern half of Texas.
That was all in the past.
Saris 7 and its aftermath killed or led to the deaths of eighty five to ninety percent of Americans, depending on various other environmental factors like emotional support, ability to find and stock supplies, and ability to defend said supplies from would-be villains.
For whatever reason the men and women manning the weather center at Joint Base Lackland were hit especially hard.
Only one person remained alive.
Her name was Tina Koszarek, and she was an unpaid intern from the University of Texas at San Antonio.
She was on the job for exactly seventeen days when Saris 7 struck the earth.
Now to her credit, Tina was at the top of her class and had the potential to be the best intern the center ever had.
But she wasn’t exactly the most experienced person around.
Tina was originally from Houston, and during the thaw between Saris 7 and Cupid 23 went back to her hometown to visit.
Actually, the visit was as much for fact-finding as it was to reconnect with family. For she knew instinctively that many of her family hadn’t made it.
She knew of absolutely no one whose family had come through completely unscathed.
Still, she hoped for the best.
That’s why it was particularly heartbreaking to learn everyone she ever called family was wiped from the face of the earth.
Everyone. She was all alone.
At that point she almost took her own life, until common sense took control. It convinced her that if her blood line was to continue, it was up to her to further it.
She and she alone could carry on her family’s heritage.
Back at JB Lackland she explained the situation to the group commander, who hired her on the spot as the chief of the weather division.
She still had no family, but at least she had a title and was on the payroll.
The Air Force was still paying its people in vouchers… little more than fancy IOUs, until the federal government was able to start printing currency again.
And that was fine with Tina. There was nothing to spend money on anyway. The only thing of value was food, and those who had it weren’t selling it. Not at any price.
There was nothing else worth paying for. So, like most Air Force personnel, Tina just put aside her pay vouchers each month in hopes that sometime in her lifetime she could trade them for actual money.
She recognized, of course, that might be a long while, for not only would the U.S. Treasury have to start printing currency again, but the country would also have to have a working economy.
Tina dreamed that someday she could retire and pay cash for a house, more cash for a new car, and still have enough left over to let her retire in style.
That likely wouldn’t happen, for no Air Force retiree had ever been able to “retire in style” unless they hit the lottery either before or after they hung up their uniform.
But she figured she could be the first. After all two meteorites nobody had ever heard of thirteen years before had changed the world in more ways than anyone: not scientists, not government agencies, could ever have imagined.
So who was to say that couldn’t happen as well?
Tina had nothing better to do with her life, so she accepted her position she was offered and was solely in charge of anything having to do with weather.
She put each pay voucher aside, continued to live in her base housing unit an easy walk from the weather station, and lived off stockpiled government rations.
-26-
In a wor
ld where few luxury items existed anymore, and the only real goal anyone had was waking up the next day, most people’s energy was devoted to staying warm and keeping their bellies fed.
Neither was anywhere as easy as it sounded.
But those in the United States military or employed by same had a definite advantage in both regards.
The military, since its earliest days, focused on overkill and excess.
In their training they practiced the same scenarios and war games over and over again ad nauseum.
Soldiers didn’t like it when they practiced the same things for the thousandth time, but when they went into real combat and they were able to perform critical functions instantly and correctly, with no hesitation and no thinking things through despite a vastly elevated stress level, they understood the logic behind the repetition.
In combat soldiers don’t have time to think, you see. They must react to any situation immediately and correctly.
Hesitation means good men die.
And that’s not acceptable.
Many people think the Air Force never practices war games, but that’s not true at all.
They drill constantly, deploying whole fleets of aircraft and support personnel around the globe to hone their skills.
Scratch the “fleets” of aircraft. The Air Force calls them squadrons. And at any given time there are dozens deployed all over the world.
Because as the old adage goes, “practice makes perfect.”
Repetitive training is one thing the United States military is very good at.
That’s the aforementioned “overkill.” At least in the mind of your average enlisted man or woman.
The other thing they’re very good at is excess: having too much of everything.
Again, there’s a good reason for the perceived “gluttony” practiced by every branch of the armed forces.
The Army and Marine Corps never know how much equipment they’ll lose in any given campaign.
They must always have spares not only available, but also forward-deployed; close by.
It just wouldn’t do to call “time out” in an important battle and wait for a replacement tank to be brought in from a storage facility in Alabama, for example.
This Changes Everything Page 8