by L K Hingey
“Aw. That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me!” Tristan teased and looked back at Kimber with a wink. His sarcasm earned him a swift, but soft, knee to the ass, and Kimber removed her coil. She dropped into a squat by the box and set to picking the tiny lock, her fingers working deftly. This lock was easier to pick than the door had been, and Kimber quickly got the small box open.
Tristan dropped onto his knees and peered into the tiny panel. Kimber stood behind him and placed her hands on his shoulders, rolling her thumbs into his back encouragingly.
“This subpanel is labeled really cleanly,” he started. “The only problem is that I don’t know what all the levels mean. I’m just going to flip all the breakers, and I think we should have the underground levels fully fed.”
“Sounds like a solid plan,” Kimber approved.
Tristan flipped all the breakers on and waited. Nothing happened. “No sign is a good sign. Let’s find our way down and back up before the generators do something wonky.”
Kimber nodded and followed him out of the room. She thought back on her conversation with her mother and whispered to Tristan, “We are looking for a room at the back of the clinic with the initials of the Bureau of the door. Oh, and um, we may also need an access card.”
“Your mom left you one of those, didn’t she?”
“She left hers, yes, but she mentioned me needing to find another. One that would be laying around. My guess is that her card granted her access into her individual laboratory, but maybe she was required to be escorted down into the lower levels or something.” Kimber’s statement was more of a question as she looked around the fluorescent hallway, searching the floor as if access cards would be laying around like eggs in the chicken coops. Caleb’s chicken coops. The memory stung, and Kimber had to work to brush it off.
“Let’s find the room first to see what we are up against,” Tristan said logically.
The pair wandered down the hall. The scene they had earlier observed by flashlight did not look any cheerier under the buzzing incandescent lights. They came to a dead end and had to double back to the lobby and try another hallway. As they did, Kimber eyed the bodies for any plastic cards. To her surprise, she spotted quite a few. It seemed many of the doctors and nurses had perished alongside their patients.
Towards the back end of the next hall, they found what they were looking for. A door with frosted glass that bore the initials I.B.R.P. Kimber rolled her eyes at the ‘I’ in front of the Bureau of Race Preservation’s initials. They must have thought branding an international organization sounded better than just being “The Bureau.” Tristan pushed the door open. It had once been secured with what looked to be a complex lock system, but the door had been severely damaged, Kimber assumed, in a hunt for additional supplies.
Once they were in the room, nothing stood out as being strange, except that there were no medical examination chairs or tables present. Instead, the room was filled with office equipment, as if it were functioning as a business suite instead of a hospital. Desks and computer stations were neatly positioned, and there was a door with frosted glass leading out into a different hallway. On the far side of the room Tristan and Kimber found what they were looking for: a thin and completely featureless steel door.
As they walked towards the back of the room, Kimber read the wooden name plates sitting upon the desks. “SFC Olson, CPT Thatcher, SGT Grimsley, and 1LT Aldrich.” Kimber realized she was reading the names of Army personnel who must have been assigned to protect the windowless metal door. She wondered if they had even known what they were actually protecting. Her guess was probably not.
One may have mistaken the door for a closet save for the small keypad next to it, blinking with a green light. Kimber tried to not to gawk at the electrical gadget. She had seen lightbulbs turn on in the classrooms of Inanna. She had even built simple machines that could generate small amounts of electricity. But this keypad was the first barrier in what Kimber assumed would be a lineup of intricate electrical components. As long as the little green alarm continued to blink, there was hope. It symbolized whether or not they could reach their destination, and more importantly... whether or not they would be able to get back.
Chapter XV
As Tristan and Kimber evaluated the keypad, they pinpointed what had been so odd about the door. It had no handle. Kimber dug into one of the side components where she had hidden the access badge and pulled it out. She pressed it against the keypad and the light blinked red. She looked at Tristan and shrugged; it had been worth a try. As Kimber tucked the small plastic badge back into her bag, the lights resumed flashing green.
Tristan looked around the room. “You know what,” he said slowly, realization dawning on him. “If these were Soldiers in here, I’d bet that they were the guards. They were the ones who probably had the right access cards to get in the door!”
Kimber’s face lit up. Assuming the Soldiers had not just taken off, and they probably had not if their sole job was to protect this vault, then the access cards might be easy to identify. There were no bodies in the room, so Kimber and Tristan rushed to check in the drawers of the desks. They combed everything, dumping out bin after bin of belongings and files, but found nothing. Kimber was still scouring the room when Tristan called to her.
“Hey, come check this out!”
Kimber walked over and saw him on a knee looking at the glass of the door that led down the other hallway. It had been shattered, but not in the normal way that glass shatters. The glass had been shot. The impression of a bullet, small, but clear as the borealis, was located near the bottom right side of the door’s window. Around the bullet, it looked like someone had punched the glass with all their might without actually breaking it.
“Bullet proof glass,” Tristan concluded. They had never seen it before, but they had heard of it.
“Looks like someone was desperate to get in.” Kimber said, looking at Tristan.
“Or out,” he replied, darkly.
Tristan looked troubled. He did not like the idea of guns around, even if the handlers had been dead for almost two decades. The door was unlocked, and Tristan pushed it as far open as it would go, which was not far. Something was blocking the threshold, and he had to shove to sweep the obstruction out of the way. He stepped into the hall and Kimber followed him, their stomachs both turning when they found out what the blockage had been.
It had been a skeleton. This skeleton was a bit different from the rest though. The bodies on the surface had all decayed into nothing but bone, leaving behind just shoes and jewelry. Occasionally, jackets or other clothing items were strewn nearby a body, but typically the clothes that had been worn on the bodies had also decomposed into nothing. This poor crumpled soul wore a metal chain around his neck and had left behind a pair of military-issued olive-green boots.
Tristan crouched by the bones and held the rectangular disc of stamped metal up the light: “1LT Aldrich.” He respectfully set the necklace back down on the Soldier’s chest and then swore loudly in surprise.
“He was shot in the side of the head!” Tristan exclaimed in disgust.
Kimber looked at the body, puzzled. Why would the Soldier have been shot? It did not make any sense.
Tristan got up and walked a few paces to where the next body had fallen. Tristan found the Soldier’s dog tags beneath the skeleton’s hips, next to a metal belt buckle. “SFC Olson,” Tristan read quietly. He too had a hole in his skull, but this shot was centered in the forehead. There were no access cards to be seen, and there was another victim farther up the hall.
“Do you think angry or frightened patients did this?” Kimber asked confused. She had seen the evidence of mutual suicides before, and the Auroras had all seen the aftermath of mass suicides, but this was different.
“I honestly don’t know,” Tristan said as he crouched by the third body. The body was facing in the opposite direction, and his head was down. It looked like the bullet hole had gone in through the back of
the skull. Tristan did not have time to search for his dog tags because cupped in an outstretched hand, was a plastic access card. He uncomfortably pried it out of the bony grip, murmuring a soft apology that only the Soldier could hear.
Kimber waited in silence for Tristan to stand, and as he did, clouds of sadness churned in his green eyes. The access card had belonged to a Captain Thatcher. He must have been the officer in charge of guarding the laboratories and responsible for keeping the master access card. Tristan nodded towards the room and followed Kimber towards the unmarked door.
When Kimber turned around, she looked at Tristan nervously. She hated to add to his discomfort and knew he was not going to be a fan of what she was about to suggest.
“Tristan,” Kimber started calmly, “I have a concern about something.” She was trying to approach the subject in the most logical and unemotional manner possible, framing it as Tristan might have.
He eyed her with a speculative look. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”
“Probably not,” she conceded and went on. “I am worried about the generators going off while we are underground. We have no idea if there are emergency exits to the surface if the power goes out. The elevator may be our only ticket in or out.”
“You’re not asking me to let you go down there alone, are you? Please don’t even say it. Look, if the power goes out, we can find a way to break out, or climb up, or something. Or tell me what to look for, and I’ll go.”
“I can’t tell you what to look for because I don’t even know. And we can’t risk missing something that maybe only I’d be able to pick up on. Tristan, if we both get trapped down there, the chance of us making it out quickly is zero, and the chance of us making it out period is only slightly better. But, if the generators stop working with you here on the surface, you can fix them and get me out!”
Tristan started to pace unhappily. He had to think it over before he agreed to anything. “I didn’t come all this way to let you do this alone. What if you need me and I am just sitting up here twiddling my thumbs-"
Kimber walked up to him and stopped him, taking him by the hands. His body was motionless, but his eyes were still panicking.
“You have already done more than you know. Just you being here means the world to me. And I’m not the one who got us through that sandstorm and then got those generators working. I probably wouldn’t have even made it this far alone.” Kimber tried to keep her voice steady for his sake. “I know that sometimes I bite off more than I can chew, but this is not me being stubborn. I think the smart call is to have someone up here in case of an emergency.”
Her voice lowered and almost turned into a plea. “I don’t want us to end up in this place with these bodies, Tristan. You may be saving my butt again before the day is through.”
Tristan looked at her painfully, searching her eyes for any hint of doubt with such an intensity that it left her feeling naked. When he found none, his gaze conceded, and the intensity was replaced once again by rolling clouds of sadness.
“Will you please be as safe and as fast as you can be?” his voice was low and raw. It stung Kimber’s heart to have hurt him so deeply. It did not matter if it was the right call or the wrong call; she could see how much it was tearing him up inside, and it took all her will power not to cave in.
“I will be safe and extremely fast, I promise. You see,” she started shyly, “there is something wonderful that I found recently. I am not about to get stuck in some prehistoric basement and ruin my chances at getting to know this wonderful thing better.” She smiled and glanced down, blaming the honesty that came tumbling out of her mouth on Tristan’s mesmerizing eyes.
Tristan was shocked and knocked off guard. She was just so cute. Even the way she had become so suddenly shy was downright cute. Without thinking, Tristan leaned down and kissed her. Their hands were still intertwined, and he felt as though the gate to a circuit had snapped shut, allowing the rush of electricity, from what felt like both of the Ireland Clinic’s backup generators, to course through their bodies.
Kimber did not have time to think or to process what was happening. All she knew was that Tristan’s lips felt so reassuring on hers that, for a fleeting moment, the dreadfulness of this place melted away. She leaned into him and felt his broad chest and arms envelope her in safety. The unplanned kiss had been surprisingly passionate, leaving Kimber’s head buzzing with dizziness.
“Well, now I definitely don’t want to get lost down there,” Kimber said in a breathy voice, a bashful grin spreading across her face.
“Good,” Tristan said. “Because you promised.”
Kimber smiled at him and walked over to the door. She waited for Tristan to swipe the card over the keypad, praying it would work while also praying that it would not. To her equal relief and disappointment, the blinking lights changed to a steady green and they heard the door unlock, swinging open automatically. In front of them was a short corridor. It was sterile, white, and as unnerving as a red-eyed lab rat. At the end of the hall, they saw an elevator. Kimber looked at Tristan and mustered a smile, trying to look as confident as she could.
She decided to make her exit as quick as possible, knowing that Tristan could not even come into the corridor, lest the power fail at the exact inopportune moment, trapping them both in the small space. He was shifting uncomfortably outside the door, and Kimber gently took the key card from his hand, replacing it with a squeeze. She hurried to the elevator and pressed the card to the keypad. The lights started to flash red.
“You’d better hold onto this.” Kimber jogged the Soldier’s access card back to Tristan.
She ran back to the elevator, pulled out her mother’s access card, and pressed it upon the flashing sensor. The lights went steady green, and the elevator door opened. Kimber breathed in deeply and stepped into the elevator. She tried to stay calm and not reveal that her stomach was already laying at the bottom of the elevator shaft. She looked at the buttons that would take her to the various levels: ML1, SL1, SL2, SL3, and SL4.
Kimber felt her throat constricting. She did not know much longer she could hide her panic, and as she smiled bravely out at Tristan, she frantically pressed a button with an icon that looked like a door closing. The steel doors began to shut. As the metal jaws clamped together, from somewhere came a loud ding. Kimber jumped so high she almost hit the ceiling, suspiciously looking around the small compartment after she realized that nothing had happened yet. With a pounding heart, she looked at the five levels. She shrugged and figured sublevel one would be the most logical place to start. Kimber steeled her mind and got ready to press SL1, glancing down at her mother’s card for encouragement.
Her beautiful mother stared up at her reassuringly, next to the text Kimberly Thatcher, MD, Genetic Engineering, SL4. That was it, SL4! Kimber reflexively hit the button before she lost her nerve. Suddenly, the floor lurched, feeling as if it had fallen out into a bottomless pit. Kimber’s stomach somersaulted and for a split second, she thought she would be ill. The sensation passed as quickly as it had hit her, and before she knew it, the elevator’s lights were indicting that they were passing SL1 and then SL2.
Come on, come on, Kimber thought, desperate to get out. She imagined the skyscrapers in big cities like New York and could not picture going up or down hundreds of stories this way. The lights indicated that she was passing SL3 and then the elevator began to slow, approaching SL4. With another loud ding, the metal doors opened.
Kimber looked nervously out into the space in front of her. What she saw was nothing like the dated clinic above. This space looked deceptively massive, constructed with crisp clean lines. The floor was a highly polished concrete and in it reflected the strips of vertical lights that lined the large room. Kimber was not sure if she was looking at a very wide hallway or a room, but knew whichever it was, it was the hub of this sublevel. The lobby, she decided. To her immediate right was a shiny concrete staircase that led up to a landing before hooking back to the left and d
isappearing.
Large faux plants lined the edges of the space, the dark leafy greens helping to soften the stiff concrete walls which had been formatted in large, neat, polished blocks. The ceilings were remarkably high and were a continuation of the concrete of the walls. Kimber walked into the lobby gazing around, trying to picture the bustle of the world’s most brilliant minds meeting and deliberating in this place. To the left of the stairwell, the ceilings hung lower to grant space for an additional landing, under which was a row of offices. The offices sat pristinely behind panes of thick glass that stretched from the floor to the ceiling.
The offices were tidy and featured the sleek furnishings of the 2100’s. In the center of each office was a thin panel of glass that extended up to ceiling. Around these glass towers were spirals of elegantly blown green glass that snaked 1/3 of the way up from the floor and 1/3 of the way down from the ceiling. The panels, now energized, blinked with blue digital numbers and letters prompting one to log in. Atop the desks were similar screens, also blinking with small blue digits.
On the bookshelves in the rooms was a mini library of encyclopedias and textbooks. Kimber placed her hands on the glass windows and peered in, straining to see the titles that lay stacked on the end tables in the room beside brightly colored couches. Anatomy of the Genetically Modified Era, Dissecting Human DNA, The Time of the Harnessing; How We Finally Unlocked Nirvana, Tardigrades; Secrets to Self-Healing Revealed, and WWIII Lessons Revisited, were some of the titles Kimber could read.
Kimber desperately wanted to go into and flip through the pages of the books but knew that she had no time. Instead, she continued along the wall of offices, counting three rooms in total. On the opposite side of the spacious lobby were two doors that were spaced out evenly, hooking around to a third door that sat directly opposing the elevator on the far side of the lobby. The doors were all locked with adjacent keypads.