Reuben laughed. “Can you cook a good pot roast?”
“No.”
“Oh.” Ruben nodded. “I would recommend you use some of your womanly wiles then.”
Hope rolled her eyes. “That only works if he’s not already mad at me.”
Clint cut in. “Don’t suppose you could figure out an easier way of doing this, Hope? Can’t we just make a big bomb or something and shoot it off from a distance like they do? Now that we’ve got one of them on our side.”
“Yeah,” Ruben said. “Wasn’t it a bomb you were testing? Isn’t that what brought you here?”
She shook her head. “No, what we were testing wasn’t meant to blow up. Even if I remembered clearly what it was and what we did wrong, I don’t think I would have the materials or tools here.”
“Well, could you put something together? When we are ready to attack, it would be mighty useful if we could have a few explosions. Maybe one for misdirection and one to let us in. I think you should play around in that workshop, see what you can come up with.”
“I don’t know. I didn’t make weapons. I don’t know if I can.”
“You can try. Just try to come up with something, anything, and get your husband to be our lookout.”
“What about me, what should I do?”
“You can soften the community to the idea of war. Start planting the seeds, and you can assist Hope.”
“I think Hope should just talk to everyone.”
“No.” She shook her head. “They like you better, he’s right. Maybe you could start off by telling everyone it’s time to build above ground. We live underground to hide from the dome, and so it would make sense to be a grievance to use later.”
“That is exactly right, and why we can’t keep living like this forever. We will always have limitations when we have to hide our people. We need to build above ground in order to grow our technology and make advancements. We can never have what we once did as long as we can’t build large factories and automation.”
She looked over at Reuben and then spoke into the microphone. “I think we are in agreement with why we need to do this. It’s not us who need to be convinced, just the rest of this town. So, where do we begin?”
Chapter 17
The more the room filled with the aroma from her cooking, the more concerned she became. She didn’t need to taste her pot roast to know she had done something wrong. This smelled nothing like when Josh cooked.
She heard the outer door open and tried her best to plaster a smile on her face. “Hi, honey, welcome home.”
He froze at the bottom of the stairs. “Hi.” He paused. “What are you doing?”
She gulped, trying to keep the smile on her face. “I was done early. I thought I would surprise you with making dinner.”
“Oh.” He stepped a little closer. “Well, I’m surprised.” He leaned in and kissed her cheek. “I’ll go wash up.”
He returned quickly, and they sat at the table. Josh carved into the roast. “So, what’s the occasion?”
She smoothed her hair and smiled at him. “No occasion. I am well aware that you are the only man in this community responsible for preparing an evening meal. I have to learn eventually.”
He nodded and placed a cut of meat on each of their plates. She struggled to cut into the meat as it seemed tougher than usual. He watched her lift one bite into her mouth, quickly reaching for her glass of water.
“Oh my. What did I do wrong?”
He worked to suppress his laughter. “Everything.” He lost his composure momentarily. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t laugh. You gotta start somewhere. I just think you should start with me here next time. You can’t just stick a hunk of meat in the oven like that.”
“What did I miss?”
“Like I said, everything. You first gotta let it age, then you gotta brine it, and season it, then you can cook it.”
“Oh. I thought you just stick it in the oven.” Her shoulders slumped. “What do we do with this now?”
“Not much we can do at this point.” He stood and kissed her forehead. “I think it’s real sweet of you to try, though. I’d love to teach you if you wanna learn.” He cleared their plates, returning with cheese and bread. He took a few bites and chewed thoughtfully. “Why do I get the feeling we got some bad news coming?”
She let out an exasperated grunt. Not only had she failed at cooking dinner to butter him up, but she had no capacity for manipulation or lying. “Yes. There is something I need to talk to you about.” She took a deep breath and filled him in on as much detail as she could muster.
He listened intently until she finished and remained silent while he mulled it over. “I don’t know Hope. They turned that radio off for a reason. God will take care of the dome people when Christ returns to the Earth. I don’t know why they think they’ve got to get involved.”
“Joshua, what if God wants us to take care of ourselves? I mean, if he would intervene, don’t you think he would have done so already? Why would he let the dome be built in the first place and leave us to sit and wait for several generations?”
“To be tested. God is testing us.”
“What if he is, and we are failing?” She looked at him pleading for his understanding. “Didn’t God want people to start wars back in the Bible? What’s different between then and now?”
He shook his head. “We weren’t on the cusp of the second coming. Back then when God told people to start wars was before Jesus came.”
She struggled to find the right words. “Joshua, I need to do this. I need to help these people and I need you to support me.”
“Why? Why can’t I be enough for you?”
“Because I’m angry! I spent my life living in the dome or mountain being told the world was poisonous. My partner died building a device so we can colonize, and I can’t figure out why they feel the need to do that. This planet is fine; I’m living proof of that, and yet they will send us into outer space when they could simply take down the dome and expand the city.”
She stood and turned away from him, pinching the bridge of her nose, breathing deeply to regain control of her temper.
“There are good people where I am from, like me and my late partner. Most of the people inside that dome and mountain are innocent and can’t save themselves. They need to be rescued and so far, God has abandoned them. And before you say something like ‘God isn’t saving them because they are heathens’, they don’t have the option to be anything other than heathens.”
She knew she was getting into the category of fighting dirty, but she needed this to land. Although she didn’t enjoy using his religious convictions to manipulate the man she loved, she knew she was right about this. It was convenient she had observed Adah manipulate the Reverend—she had learned from the best.
“They can’t ever accept Christ into their hearts because their leaders ensure they have never heard of him. Just think of all the innocent people who can’t get into heaven because the people here won’t do anything to help them. I can’t believe for a second that Jesus wants his chosen people to sit idle. I agree this community is being tested to see if you will love your neighbor enough to save them. You wouldn’t just be starting a war for the sake of war, but you would have the opportunity to save a lot of people like me, both physically and spiritually.”
Joshua sat still, his face frozen as he stared forward. She knew she had struck a nerve with him.
“Why can’t we tell my momma? Or anyone else?”
“Because they turned off the radio to begin with. If they knew about it, they might do more than just disconnect the power source. These people need our help. They need you to record and report what you already see when you are out hunting. The most help they will need is when they arrive. They need us to feed and harbor their army. Some food and shelter, that’s it.” She squeezed his hand. “People get scared. It is easy to keep everything the same but terrifying to change. We have been safe here hiding from the dome, and when the
re is a war that might not be the case anymore. It is a risk, but I feel we must do what we can to help this cause.”
He nodded but looked somber. “And all you want me to do is to pay attention to what I see them do? Like when the trucks come to where I found you and try to look out for when they head back and forth between the dome.”
“Yes. You need to report all their activity you see so I can record it and look for patterns.”
“What kind of pattern?”
“Well, for example, how often do they head out to that test site? Is it once a week and if so which day do they favor and what time of the day? How long do they stay there? How frequently do they travel between the dome and mountain?”
“And how is that going to help?”
“Because they need to move a good deal of people past the dome undetected. They will travel on the east side of the dome since we are southeast and the dome has less movement or activity there. Essentially, they want to move past the dome when they are the least likely to get noticed or caught. Once their army arrives, knowing their patterns and movements can help the army to strategize an attack.”
He shook his head. “I don’t see why we need to be doing any of this. It sounds like they already got their plan.”
“Because nothing will happen fast. They need time to gather numbers from other places for their army and build more weapons and tools.” She sighed. “They aren’t asking much from us, Joshua. Note their activity, tell me of anything you see out of the ordinary and don’t tell the community who might rule to destroy the radio. I am working on trying to remember as much detail about life inside the dome but it is still foggy and coming in slowly. I can’t risk losing that radio when I might still have more information to pass along.”
They sat in silence for what felt like an eternity before he answered. “I’ll try this because it’s important to you. If anything happens—”
“It won’t. I won’t let it. If you feel like it is too dangerous,” she hesitated, “or God sends you a sign we have to stop, then we will.” She took a deep breath and after a moment she leaned in and kissed his cheek. Expecting to change his core beliefs about his role in life would take a miracle. She had to take each small victory as it came. Today she had two victories; he would report to her and keep this entire ordeal from his mother; at least, she hoped he could keep it from Adah.
***
“Do we have more work to do today?”
Miriam glared at her before climbing the stairs to leave.
“Why? You got plans with Reuben? Need to coordinate a time when his wife is at the church sewing?” She did nothing to disguise the venom from her words.
Hope did her best to control her impulse to roll her eyes and smiled instead. “No, actually. I wanted to have a picnic lunch with Joshua today if we finished in time. I have it all packed and I know exactly where he is hunting today. But if you have more work for me to do, I’m sure Joshua won’t starve to death from missing one meal. I can just spruce it up and call it dinner.”
As it was an important part of a woman’s role in their community to keep her husband well fed, she had hit her mark. The best part of this plan was the fact it was honest. She was bringing a picnic lunch and meeting her husband, yet lunch wasn’t their reason for meeting. Reuben had found a pair of old binoculars and passed them along to Joshua. She didn’t need to join him to observe but it seemed like it might be fun and would give Joshua a little more confidence in his task if she did it with him. Maybe if he felt less threatened by her life before him, he would be more accepting of all her little quirks.
Miriam sent her off in record time now she didn’t suspect her of sneaking out to see Reuben. They had all minimized contact to keep their behavior a little less suspicious. Hope only went to see Reuben on Saturdays right after they finished at the market. Joshua even came with her to talk to Clint on the radio. They informed Clint of their change of schedule and he agreed to listen for them specifically on Saturdays. Although Miriam was still suspicious of her and watched her movements closer than her mentorship role required, she had eased up slightly on accusing her of scandal. Hope had assumed she saw Joshua go to Reuben’s place with her.
She rushed to their home and retrieved the basket with their lunch. Joshua had marked the path to find him with twigs stuck into the ground. She walked along and found his twigs every few yards until she arrived at a hill. He was sitting waiting for her with a fresh kill on his sled.
“Wow, you already got one.” She kissed him in greeting.
“I still have to keep up my workload. If people go hungry, someone might question how I’m spending my time.”
“How clever. It’s almost as though you were meant for a life of crime.”
He smiled and kissed her. “That’s apparently the life I signed up for when I met you.”
“And aren’t you glad you did? How boring would your life have been if you married someone normal?”
He kissed her again and grabbed her hand as they climbed the hill. When they got close to the top, he let go of her and they crawled on their hands and knees until they reached the peak. They lay nearly flat to the ground and pulled out the binoculars.
“If I found their pattern, they should be there working now. I was already somewhat aware of them and stayed clear of this area in the middle of the week.”
“I think you have. I think we only left the mountain once a week. We rotated through the couples for whose turn it was to go out testing.”
“Are there other groups who test?”
“I think so.” She shrugged. “I feel we didn’t work with others. They kept us segregated for some reason and I don’t think I knew what the other people were working on, let alone how often they did field testing.”
Josh looked through the binoculars then offered them to Hope. “If someone was standing in just the right position, do you think you would recognize one of your group?”
She shook her head. “To see their face through their helmets would be a challenge, even with binoculars.” She stopped speaking and rolled onto her back and stared up at the sky.
“What’s going on, Hope?”
She shook her head. “Shh. I feel like I’m on the verge of remembering something.”
“Alright.” He continued to peer through the binoculars at the team. “Would you remember what you were working on if you saw it?”
She nearly sat up from excitement but he instantly shot his arm out to keep her down. She carefully rolled over under his protective arm and reached for the binoculars. After peering at the gear they set up, she handed back the binoculars and rolled cautiously onto her back once again.
“I don’t think that’s my group. Their stuff doesn’t look familiar.” She closed her eyes and tried to focus on the memory struggling through the fog. “It was a special day of the week, but it wasn’t all the time. We did most of our work inside the mountain and then had set blocks of time we tested outside. I think there are two scientists and two chaperones for our protection, well, that’s what they say. I think it’s more likely we get escorted because they don’t want to chance we run off or make contact with survivors they have told us don’t exist.”
“So you don’t think anyone comes here any other day of the week?”
“No. I think there is only one testing day. So much work is theoretical and we would spend months running simulations before we took anything outside to test. They must have multiple teams coming out to test different projects in order to consistently need a testing day. ”
He observed the group again for a while before turning back to her. “Can you remember how to work one of those big trucks?”
She thought for a moment and said, “I don’t think so. I don’t think they taught us. Those escorts have weapons and they can operate the vehicles. I don’t think we should try to overtake them and steal their carrier. I think they would kill a good amount of people first.”
He shrugged. “Just thinking out all our options.”
“Joshua, that is great. You are doing exactly what Clint asked. We are recording information so we can come up with some weakness of theirs or a way to overtake them.”
“But that isn’t one of them?”
“I don’t think so. I think that second truck came because they knew something went wrong. I think it’s supposed to be one truck, not a second to be deployed. If we wanted to overtake a truck, we would need to get our hands on a weapon like theirs and take them out from a distance. Plus, if our attack alerts them as our explosion did, we need to be ready for more to come.”
“So, that could lure them out of both the dome and the mountain. We attack one little team, and they send the rest of their army looking for us.”
She blinked rapidly. “Josh, you have a gift for strategy! Let’s add that to our list of ideas to pass on. I worry they will bomb the area instead of sending a team, but it is still a viable option that needs to be explored.”
Beyond: Book Four of the State Series Page 18