Nuclear Winter

by Td Barnes

  The residents of the mountain played no role in the supplying of the mountain and stayed out of the way, spending their time moving in and helping organize the massive amount of arriving supplies, collecting the wooden forms used for concreting the floor of the tunnel, and otherwise cleaning up debris to make for more comfortable walking.

  The around the clock activities had thus far prevented them being bored or having time to contemplate their fate. Two semi truckloads of military camouflage utility uniforms arriving on their second day at the mountain provided something new to bolster spirits and quickly became one of the most popular items among the civilians who, upon hearing about the uniforms, lined up at the entrance to the supply alcove to receive their issue.

  Oddly, the civilians perceived the uniforms a prized possession that they could call their own. This was an important issue after their leaving everything they owned behind during the evacuation. To distinguish the civilians from the military, the quartermaster issued different style Kevlar helmets and no symbols of rank. Instead of displaying status, some of the teenage girls were already adorning their uniforms and helmets with little things that spoke of their gender, independence, and interests.

  Everyone at the mountain felt exhausted when the truck traffic ceased at the south portal and welcomed the departure of the last truckloads of equipment and supplies arriving at the north portal entrance. Bradley and his staff knew the transition to permanent residency posed a period where old memories would resurface and possible depression set in.

  While her husband managed his “Ark,” Stacey organized staff to administer the housing of occupants and to maintain a census count. She established routines for feeding everyone in the joint dining rooms and helped coordinate policy for everything from maintenance to sick call. She sought volunteers from the teenage dependents to organize a library containing technical manuals and how-to books arriving by the truckloads.

  One shipment included 208 undamaged Apple-MacBook Air laptop computers from the Apple Store in the Las Vegas Town Square shopping center. These she packed and boxed for individual protection. These too they stored at the back of the library.

  On the other end, someone attuned to the needs of the isolation situation developing at the mountain had arranged for the delivery of hundreds of digitized movies and thousands of digitized books. This included children’s school books and probably the oddest of all, shipments of medical supplies that included six frozen canisters of human sperm from a local sperm bank in Las Vegas. Though no one knew the source at the time, one shipment included four frozen canisters of domestic animal sperm. She later learned that this came from Starquest Aerospace originally meant to establish an eventual animal life at an extraterrestrial venue.

  From her military travels and experiences, Stacey knew the importance of keeping the dependents occupied and a functioning team. She located among the residents two young ladies experienced in cosmetology and set up a primitive, but efficient beauty salon in one of the cubicles for the female residents and a barber shop for the males by merely designating days for men and days for women, both using the same two cosmetologists.

  Once she started organizing the various departments making up the populous of the mountain, other organizers followed her lead and picked up the load for their unit. She felt comfortable hosting the military dependents but recognized the need for a leader acceptable to the residents.

  In an ostentatious display of support, she recommended to Bradley that he appoint Robinson as mayor of the mountain. Stacey’s recommendation handed off the day-to-day management responsibilities. In doing so, she unintentionally established herself the first lady because of her being the wife of the commander and the one to select the mayor.

  Samantha Bradley, a stylish looking woman, wore her hair short and like her mom, obviously took care of herself physically. She sported a dark golfer’s tan that spoke of her adventurous, love for the outdoors. She and most those at the mountain treated the transition to a subterranean lifestyle in a challenge and bold fashion rather than one of gloom

  Samantha’s adventure started two months after celebrating her 23rd birthday when she reported to the Homeland Security Training Academy inside the Nevada National Security Site immediately after graduating from the University of Nevada Las Vegas.

  Having worked where the United States had tested atomic bombs for decades and finding little to do since arriving at the mountain, she sought to help her mother with setting up social activities. While teaching line dancing to a group of the mountain’s children, she noticed a New Zealand Maori named Arana Rajan among the soldiers and recalled a vacation taken with her parents to New Zealand where she learned about the Maori Indians of New Zealand. She and the soldier teamed up during his off-duty time to teach the children the Maori dances that had impressed her during that vacation.

  Throughout the mountain, the new residents sought to establish themselves beneficially. Susie Martin, the Beatty Clinic nurse, set up a first aid station at the front of the alcove near the medical alcove. Volunteers stepped forward to manage the livestock, maintain the electrical, work in the galley, and the other functions of their underground village.

  All this drastically lifted the morale with responsibility and challenge replacing the despair of leaving their homes and friends. The morale remained high among the military when gauged by the level of self-deprecating and ribald humor.

  The military personnel boisterously ragged one another griped about the food, the boredom, movies, music, one another — everything— this being their way of indicating happiness.

  Bradley feared depression setting in once the residents thought of home and lost loved ones. However the residents instead accepted their lot, and if they mourned, they did so in private.

  Knowing that the delivery of supplies would cease today, leaving his people on their own to play a nation-building role, he felt it time for them to see the reason for such an extensive logistic effort. Wanting to discuss the matter with his staff and Captain Callahan first, he summoned them from their various stations within the mountain.

  It took a few minutes, even by bicycle for those traveling the five-mile distance from the other end of the tunnel during which time those waiting to make small talk and grew to know one another a bit better, some finding this the first opportunity to speak to one another.

  Bradley cleared his throat and spoke after seeing the last arrival. “Gentlemen, most of you know that we’ve played a hoax on the people that we are supposed to protect here at the mountain. I dissembled the facts when I told them only to bring what they would usually take on a brief vacation. What I said caused some of them to believe that they would be returning home.”

  His voice switched to a somber, yet authoritative tone. “We know that is not the case. I expect this mountain to be home to generations of those we have brought here. We must tell them and, gentlemen, we must prepare for when the people may leave the mountain and pick up the responsibility of living off the land.”

  His whispery voice again shifted in tone. “Many entered as scientists and such only to realize their future now being farming and working livestock like their distant ancestors when they settled the West. They will at the same time fight for their lives, and this time it won’t be against primitive Indian tribes.”

  “We wondered when you intended to tell them, sir,” the sergeant major said. “I might add that we are relieved to see you considering our circumstances and mission to be a generational thing.”

  Several of the others nodded their heads in concurrence.

  “Thanks, Sergeant Major. I appreciate you showing confidence in our preparations. I could tell that most of you knew what is in store for us. Today I mainly want us to devise how we will inform everyone that we no longer have another world to call home. I have another concern that I also want to discuss today. That is our defenses. I expect about now that we might have visitors from those who have made deliveries to us. Too many people know we are here
and they will remember and talk. Some may try to gain access knowing what we have stored here at the mountain.” He looked towards Captain Callahan. "Captain, in this regard, effective immediately, I suggest we deploy mounted patrols along the perimeter roads and otherwise tighten up our perimeter defenses.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Addressing the rest, he continued. “You will note that I said mounted patrols and by that I mean by foot and on horseback. We must avoid creating any smoke plumes or dust trails that might draw attention to our presence. You are aware that we brought aboard a fleet of motorized vehicles. These we are preserving for the future. Effectively immediately, we will store our military vehicles except for a couple with a .50 caliber mounted for our defense against an unexpected attack. No one will leave our perimeter under any circumstances. Gentlemen, there are no exceptions to this. We have no business roaming around where someone might spot us. There is not a damn thing outside our perimeter but trouble. There will come a time in the future where adversaries with modern technology will challenge us. If we use our vehicles now, we will wear them out and not have them when we really need them, leaving us no choice but defend ourselves on horseback against helicopters and motorized vehicles. However, if we concentrate on breeding and using horses and burros for transportation now, we will have the modern army needed to defend ourselves against future adversaries having advanced means. Get this settled in your minds, and we will meet in two days to implement plans and tell our people. One last thing — with our ozone layer shot to shit, our doctor is cautioning our people against too much sun exposure. Unless our people are on perimeter duty, I see no good coming from them leaving the mountain.”

  Bradley wrapped up the meeting and was heading next door to the communications room when he received a call on the intercom. “Sir, we have a helicopter on the landing pad with a civilian asking for Sammie Bradley. He refuses to identify whom he represents.”

  “That is strange,” he thought. “I thought we were through with the outside world. Everyone is supposed to be forgetting that we exist.” “Very well. See if you can raise Sammie.” He chuckled. “Callahan, I wouldn’t get too nosey about identity. You will not get his real name in any case. I am headed your way.”

  Sammie and the stranger stood beside the helicopter when Bradley walked out of the mountain. “Dad, this is one of my counterparts. I’ll only say he is from the DOD side of the fence from where I came from the DOE side.” The three of them exchanged knowing smiles.

  “Nuke’m here says you are an Army 06 wearing DIA colors,” he said while they shook hands. "I hung out across the Potomac from your digs before being stranded here by the EMP.”

  “Nuke’m, huh?” Bradley teased his daughter. “She refused to tell me her pseudo,” he said. “I am curious to know how she acquired that handle. Last I heard you guys obtained your names off American gravestones in Europe.”

  “You must have a Q security clearance and a need-to-know before I may tell you,” she responded jokingly.

  Bradley recognized her poking fun at him because of how he grumbled about having to babysit DOE personnel holding Q security clearances whereas DHS, CIA, and DOD used a Top-Secret classification. He usually extracted a rise out of her by referring to the clearance being a Queer clearance. “Yeah? Well, Sis. You hung out at the Department of Energy too long. I have a TS, and if I am not mistaken, your cohort here does also,” he said in a joking and challenging tone. He turned to their visitor. “I have a whole tunnel full of the Q clearance types, and quite frankly I am starting to wonder what the Q signifies besides a level of DOE security clearance. They are mostly Ph.D.s, wear beards, and I am wondering if perhaps some of them might be a little limp in the wrist.”

  “Dad,” she scolded before joining the other two laughing. “I recommend that you two better straighten up or you will be attending political correctness classes. Your T&A mentality went out with the all-male Army during the Clinton administration.”

  The stranger laughed. “Well, Wild Willie certainly set a shining example. I heard that the Secret Service once caught him with Hillary’s blow dryer stuck in his pocket to heat up Monica’s breakfast.”

  All three of them laughed. “Both of you are dirty old men,” Sammie said smiling.

  “Leave me out of this,” her visitor said with a laughing snort. “You are the one who started the Q clearance thing. If I recall, you have a TS, Top Secret as well and I remember you making a very similar limp wrist comment about one of the NNSA agents shortly after you went to work at DHS.”

  “I hope no one is recording us,” she said laughing with the other two. It pleased her to see her father enjoying some naughty tits, and ass Army talk to relieve some of the stress and burden imposed since the EMP attack.

  “Colonel, I came here needing to see you also. The reason I am here is that we need to secure some highly-classified documents and a couple of prototypes that you may someday need. These absolutely must not fall into the wrong hands. We figured that going through your daughter would save us some additional skirting around the security need-to-know bush. It is a no questions asked situation.”

  Bradley knew by the visitor identifying himself being CIA that the documents came from the Groom Lake operating facility bearing the unofficial name of Area 51. Everyone in the Intel field knew that even with the Air Force assuming management of the establishment in 1979, the CIA continued to use the facility along with many aerospace companies, military, and Intel agencies.

  “Say no more. Consider your material completely secure here. We have plenty of room. We have a couple of you guys here inside the mountain, but I am sure they most likely lack the need to know in this case.”

  “That is correct. This is strictly SDI.”

  “Sammie - Nuke’m here will have sole custody of whatever you want to bring.”

  “Well, Nuke’m is a better handle than some of the things that I’ve heard you called since we’ve been at the mountain,” she joked back at her father for the way he stated her pseudo name. Turning serious, she said, “Thanks, Dad. We’ll take it from here.”

  ****

  T plus 6 days.

  Six days after the EMP attack, Beatty experienced everything horrible that Colonel Bradley predicted. It started when the convoy departed Beatty four days earlier. After the military trucks had passed, the sheriff deputies blocking Highway 95 left their blockade to fend for their families and themselves. The refugees held behind by the barrier followed close behind.

  Each day, the hot sun unmercifully bore down on the mixture of refugees, desperate dogs, cats, domestic horses, and burros mercifully released to fend for themselves and now roaming the town. Today, none of the residents dared to venture out of their home or hiding places for fear of encountering desperate refugees seeking food and water.

  The predicted stream of desperate, frightened, and starving refugees from Las Vegas and a few crossing Death Valley out of California entered the town hourly, arriving in old, mostly classic trucks, buses, and automobiles resembling the Dust Bowl exoduses of workers to California in the movie Grapes of Wrath. Like the Okies of the Dust Bowl era, they left a life of misery, but in this case, they left behind a society degraded into total anarchy, and because of hunger after their food spoiled in freezers and owners abandoned their grocery stores to the looters overwhelming them.

  The looters included inmates released from jails and prisons along with patients escaping or released from mental institutions mixed in with ordinary people from the cities who initially chose to stay in their homes until exhausting the food in their pantry or no longer able to access clean or treatable water.

  For six days, entire families had lived without television, radio, or the Internet. Most did not know why the electricity went off, or why the sun seemed hotter. They did not understand why they were seeing the nightly light display. At first, they relied on rumors making the rounds, hoping each day that the power would come back on so they could resume their everyday lives.
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  Looters and home invasions running rabid throughout their communities forced refugees to strike out in hopes of finding food, water, and to escape the violence spiraling out of control. Highways, south into California, north towards Reno, and northeast of Utah turned into virtual parking lots with old cars filled with refugees seeking to escape the looting, burning, and destruction of Las Vegas, Henderson, and the nearby Boulder City.

  Owners of classic vehicles quickly became targets of those seeking transportation, primarily by men, women, and children on foot and bicycles lining Highway 160 leading to Pahrump where they hoped to find survival.

  Hundreds of people desperate for water also trekked to Lake Las Vegas and Lake Mead where they found water, but no food, many succumbing to the merciless heat, causing contamination of the water along the shorelines due to decaying of the bodies.

  Beatty lied directly in the only route available to the refugees, the first town in their exodus north of the city by many believing that farmers and preppers stockpiling for emergencies hoarded an abundance of food. By day five of the EMP attack, over 3,000 refugees had found themselves stranded in Beatty, a few of them following up on a rumor of there being a mountain stocked with food at some place called Jackass Flats.

  Automobiles lined for blocks at any gas station, abandoned once the driver realized there was no fuel. Those leaving their vehicles now roamed the town seeking water, food, and refuge. Occasional cars passing through town endured gauntlets of desperate mobs of refugees attempting to commandeer a means of continuing their exodus.