by Ike Hamill
The tables in this cafeteria had all been arranged in lines. The chairs were stacked and placed against the wall. A man near the entrance was directing a few people as they set up plastic tubs.
“Hey, Tanner,” her father said, greeting the man. “What can we do to help?”
He sighed.
“How are you with electronics?”
“Good,” her father said. “Passable.”
Whenever they had something electric to set up at home, Uncle Brad usually did the work. Janelle opened her mouth to say so and then closed it again. Brad wasn’t here. It didn’t matter how good he was at it if he wasn’t here.
“All the power here is DC, according to Mike. We have to either convert all of these lights and pumps to work on DC, or we have to convert the DC power to AC.”
Her father nodded.
“What’s the voltage?” her father asked.
Tanner shook his head and then called someone else over. While they were consulting over the matter, Janelle took a couple of steps back. She leaned against the wall and pulled out her book. Normally, she wouldn’t want to get wrapped up in a story until she knew that they were going to stay put for a bit, but she had just gotten to the exciting part.
The people in her book were almost in the same situation. They were stuck on a boat and the engine had quit. Adrift at sea, the crew had just figured out that the captain was the one who had sabotaged the engine. When Janelle had been forced to put the book down, the crew had been planning their mutiny.
“Okay, we’ll see if we can get it sorted,” her father said.
Janelle looked up and frowned. She hadn’t gotten to read more than half a page and they were on the move.
In the hallway, her father explained. “If it was a simple operation—a couple of pumps and some lights—I would say we should just modify our equipment to run on the power that’s coming from the wall. Those lights would run fine on DC if we injected it into the correct place in the circuit. The pumps convert from alternating to direct current internally as well.”
“Let’s do that, then,” Jim said. “I’m good at soldering.”
“That’s not the part I’m worried about,” her father said. “We have to take them all apart, make the modifications, and put them all back together. We’ll have wires everywhere and we won’t be able to easily substitute replacements if anything fails. I think the better solution is to come up with a big inverter.”
Janelle tuned out the rest. She had an idea of what they were going to do. The problem would be the parts. Normally, they would go collecting. First, they would figure out a list of buildings where the parts might live. Then, they would go from place to place, trying to find a building with an intact roof and parts that hadn’t been rusted or chewed on by mice. Ninety percent of solving a problem like this came down to foraging. In the bunker, where would they forage?
Janelle looked up. She had followed her father and brother into one of the long rooms with lots of beds. They were standing next to one of the dividers that had been pulled out to separate off a space.
Her father knocked on the soft wall.
Mike came out from around the side.
“Hey, what’s up?” Mike asked.
“Sorry to bother you. I know you’re taking some down time.”
“It’s fine. What can I do for you?”
“Did we unload those inverters for the solar panels?”
Mike looked up and chewed his lip.
“You should check with Carrie to be sure, but I don’t think we did.”
Janelle went back to her book while they talked about Carrie and the inventory of equipment and where it might be stashed. In her book, the crew was hatching a plan to trap the captain in his quarters so that he couldn’t command the few people who were still loyal to him. Urged by the captain, they might defend the bridge with weapons. Without his command, they might give it up. Janelle flipped the page, wishing that she could warn the crew. The captain had a way out of his room. The author had alluded to it earlier in the book. At one point, the captain had shown up in the bridge for a surprise inspection and nobody had seen him leave his quarters. It was clear that there must be a secret passage somewhere.
Janelle liked books when they gave her clues to the crisis before it happened, but they also drove her crazy. On the one hand, she enjoyed figuring them out. On the other, she sometimes wished that she could scream at the stupid people who couldn’t see what was right in front of their faces.
“Okay, a quick trip to the storeroom,” her father said.
Janelle tucked her book away.
As they walked the passages again, Jim was wondering aloud, trying to remember exactly what he and Liam had learned from the machine. For some reason, the computer had trusted Jim but not Janelle or their dad. It made sense, in a way, that it trusted Liam. He was the one who was present when the thing was activated. Still, if the computer had been smart, it should have been able to figure out that Liam wasn’t the one who was in charge. A couple of movies they had watched featured really smart computers. Janelle had never believed it could be true, even though Brad said that computers were getting really smart before everything collapsed. In her experience, they were pretty basic tools. They could only do precisely what they were told to do, and even then they only worked if every tiny detail was accounted for beforehand.
Janelle waved to a woman who was walking a dog the other direction. The woman smiled and waved back. The dog’s name was Ryan—Janelle had no problem remembering that. The woman was named after a flower, if Janelle was remembering correctly. She was still trying to remember it when her father swiped open a door and they walked down the few stairs to the floor of the storeroom.
Janelle leaned back against the railing while her father talked to the person with the inventory. Jim wandered over to one of the racks where someone had stacked up wooden boxes filled with potatoes. He thought he was being cagey, waiting for their father to follow the inventory person over to where the electrical gear had been stacked.
Janelle hurried over to catch up with Jim before he disappeared down the row of racks.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing. Go read your book.”
“Jim, listen to me—Dad is only going to be over there for a couple of minutes. They’re going to go through the electronic stuff and then he’s going to notice that you’re missing. Guess what happens then?”
“Nothing.”
“No, not nothing. He’s totally paranoid right now. If you’re out of his sight, even for a second, he’s going to freak out again and make us hold hands all day. Is that what you want?”
“Relax. You think he’s paranoid, but you’re being three times as paranoid. Dad is fine.”
Jim pulled out a crate and pawed through some apples. He sniffed one and put it back. Janelle knew what he was thinking. He would make some apple mash and then ferment it. It was a trick he had pulled before. Jim didn’t like to drink it, but he would bottle it and trade it to older kids.
“You’re not paying attention. Didn’t you see the look in his eyes when he was talking to Mike? He wanted to ask him something, but then his eyes went over to the small mirror on the wall. He didn’t want to be overheard.”
Jim narrowed his eyes.
“You’re crazy.”
“Put that back,” she said, referring to the apple. Jim would need a ton of them to make cider, and the community didn’t have that many.
“Relax. Listen, I told Dad that everything was all set with the Center, and he believed me. You know why?”
“Why he believed you?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because it is all set. The machine was confused and Liam and I fixed it,” Jim said.
Janelle sighed. “Just trust me. Dad is coming back in a few seconds. Just be where he left you so he doesn’t freak out. He’s almost to the point where he trusts us. Once he does, you can go wherever you want.”
Jim was obstinate and so
metimes did things that were against his own interests, just for spite. This time, he did the smart thing and listened to her. Rolling his eyes as one final dig at her, he put the apple back and went down to the edge of the aisle again. Janelle followed. They were both standing there when their father turned around and looked for them.
“Kids, you get to see the control room. Let’s go.”
“Worst case scenario, we can put it together from parts in the store room. I don’t want to go that route unless we have to,” her father said. They were walking quickly now, down the main passage to the far cafeteria.
There were two or three ways to get anywhere, from what Janelle could tell. She had formed a pretty decent map in her head. Instead of taking the long hall, they could have gone through what people were calling Residence Daisy. Their room was on Residence Chicory. Through the back hall of Residence Daisy, there was a big empty room where people had set up little nets as soccer goals. Jim and Janelle both hated soccer, but for different reasons. Jim only liked baseball—mostly because he enjoyed hitting things with a stick. Janelle liked individual sports, like tennis or track. She liked to be able to change her strategy without having to explain herself to a whole team.
“Through here, I thought,” her father said. He was standing over the marking on the floor.
“It says that way,” Jim said, pointing the other direction.
“I know, but does that seem right?” her father asked.
“It has to be,” Jim said.
“This is interesting. This is really interesting.”
Her father ran his fingers over the wall, like he was feeling for something. Then, he knelt and dragged a thumbnail on the floor. Janelle took a step back and tried to take it all in. She had an idea of what her father was thinking—the hallways had somehow changed themselves. The arrows that pointed in the direction of the cafeteria were incorrect. The ones that pointed toward the control room were wrong too. The only arrow that seemed right was the one that indicated the way to get to Residence Daisy.
“Really interesting,” her father said. He finally took a step back and put his hands on his hips. “Oh well, that’s a puzzle for another time. Come on.”
They followed him dutifully as he led the way down one passage and the next. He consulted the arrows on the floor, but eventually followed his own instincts on which way they should go. As it turned out, his sense of direction was good. When he swiped the final doorway, Merle was leaning back in a chair, watching a bunch of screens that were ticking through different images.
“Hey,” Merle said. “What’s happening?”
“How does it look out there?” her father asked.
Janelle moved closer to the panel, careful to keep her hands behind her back. The panel was filled with all kinds of switches and buttons. They were color coded, but not labelled. There was no telling what would happen if she were to hit one of them.
Jim was peering at one of the monitors. While he stared at it, the image didn’t cycle through to another view. It stayed on a picture of a field with a big truck parked at the end of a dirt road.
“Is that the truck you drove around to the hatch?” Jim asked, interrupting something that Merle was saying.
“Hold on a second, Jim,” their father said. He turned back to Merle and asked, “When was that?”
“About, maybe, five minutes ago. I’m not sure. Keep watching the screen. It has to come out sometime, unless it dug a hole.”
Her father crossed his arms. He was staring at a screen that showed the overpass near where they had come in. At least that’s what it looked like to Janelle. She could see some of their trucks parked in the distance.
“It’s one of these two that we have to get to,” her father said, pointing at the screen. The view changed to show the area outside the elevators. “Can you lock that view somehow?”
“Shouldn’t need to,” Merle said. “Whenever I focus on a screen, it stays on whatever camera I’m looking at. I think it’s supposed to be automatic. I don’t know why it changed, unless it’s because you waved at it.”
“Hmmm,” her father said, crossing his arms across his chest.
“What are you guys trying to get from the truck?” Merle asked.
“There’s a bunch of solar equipment. We’re looking for an inverter that can handle about twenty-five amps.”
“We sprint from the overpass and get in the truck before the animals know we’re there,” Merle said.
Janelle looked up at her father. She could tell from his expression what he was going to say.
“No, it’s too risky. There’s a reason we’re down here. We don’t know if it’s safe aboveground. And what you said about the wolves just proves the point. We’ll come up with another solution. Thank you though.”
Merle shrugged.
Janelle followed her father as he headed for the door.
“If you see my mother, tell her I want my turn with the puppies. She can come look at screens.”
“Will do.”
“I want to go see the puppies,” Jim said.
“What did he say about wolves?” Janelle asked.
“Hold on. Hold on. I’m trying to think about our next step on the inverter issue. I think I’m going to reverse course. If we get enough people switching our pumps and lights, we can get it done in a reasonable amount of time without breaking anything else. Also, it will move us away from a single point of a failure. A homemade inverter could go bad, leaving us with dying plants while we try to replace it.”
She let him finish his thought and then gave him another few seconds to make sure he was really done.
“Dad, what did he say about wolves?”
“Where are the puppies?” Jim asked.
They reached the cafeteria and their father stopped and turned.
He pointed to Jim and said, “I don’t know, but I gather they’re with Amy Lynne, and I think that she is in one of the long barracks.”
To Janelle, he said, “Merle is tracking wolves that are acting erratically over near the overpass.”
By the way that he turned and started walking, she could tell that her father was completely engrossed in the problem of fixing the lights and the pumps. She glanced at her brother. He saw the opportunity as well. When they spotted Amy Lynne carrying a big container of water, they both knew what the next step would be.
“Dad?” Jim asked. “Can we go with Amy Lynne to see the puppies?”
He turned and looked at them. Most of his brain was still working the problem of the pumps and lights.
“Tell her that Merle wants a break, and then come find me in an hour. I will be in the fourth cafeteria.”
They both nodded. He watched them as they went to Amy Lynne. While he was in earshot, they stuck to the script.
She smiled at them and motioned with her head to follow her. The puppies were sequestered between two beds at the far end of the long barracks. Jackson was stretched out on one of the beds, propped up with a million pillows and looking miserable. While Amy Lynne filled the water dish for the dogs, Jim and Janelle climbed into the makeshift pen and picked up wagging pups. The mother dog eyed them suspiciously and growled until Amy Lynne put a hand on her back and told her to hush.
“She still remembers us,” Jim said.
One of the puppies was trying to climb out of his arms.
“Denver!” Janelle said. She saw the older dog sitting on another bed nearby and crawled out to go see him. The old dog had fathered one of their neighbor’s dogs back in Gladstone. Janelle hadn’t seen him in forever. He put his ears back and seemed to smile at her while she stroked his old, soft head.
“What do you kids think of being cooped up down here?” Amy Lynne asked.
“It’s fine,” Jim said. He tilted his chin up as a puppy tried to lick his mouth.
“We’re actually supposed to give you a message from Merle,” Janelle said. “He has been watching the monitors and he wants someone to come take over so he can take a break.”
“I’ll do it,” Jackson said. He started to wriggle his way up.
“No,” Amy Lynne said. “They told you to keep still and rest your arm. These first few days are important.”
“Whatever,” Jackson said. “I’m fine.”
“You stay put or else,” Amy Lynne said. “I’ll go.”
“You don’t even know where he is.”
“We can show you,” Janelle said. She pet Denver a few more times as Jim climbed out from underneath all the puppies.
“Yeah, okay,” Amy Lynne said with a sideways glance toward Jackson. Janelle wondered how much of her enthusiasm was due to wanting to relieve Merle, and how much was based on a desire to remove herself from Jackson’s company. When they were still a family, the two of them had fought all the time.
“Come on, kids,” Amy Lynne said, leading the way.
Janelle waved bye to Jackson and the dogs and jogged to catch up. She didn’t have time to consult with Jim, but figured that he would go along with her plan as soon as he picked up on it. He was pretty good at picking up on things as long as Janelle paved the way.
“So, that’s it,” Merle said. “You keep an eye on all these outdoor places, and watch for anything in these entryways. You shouldn’t see anything at all. If you do, hit this button over here and it’s supposed to sound the alarm.”
Amy Lynne nodded at her son’s instructions.
Merle turned to Janelle and Jim.
“You guys want to go see the puppies?”
“We just did, but we’ll go look at them again,” Jim said. “We still have a bunch of time before we have to check in with Dad.”
Janelle hung back while Jim and Merle headed for the door. She doubled back and pointed to the screen on the left.
“Watch that one especially,” she said. “Merle said he saw a wolf.”
Amy Lynne nodded.
Out in the passage, Janelle waited for the door to slide shut behind her.
“Hey,” she called to Merle and Jim. “Do you know how to get to the elevators?”
“What for?”
“Because we’re going to help you get to the truck so you can grab that inverter.”