by Mark Harritt
Pang thought for a minute. “I’ll check around to see, let me talk to everybody.We may be able to figure something out about that.”
Mike thought about it, “I need to walk back down with you. We need to introduce everybody to Matki Awrani.” He waved Everett over, “Everett, you need to go with us. I think it’s time for a big meeting. We need to get buy-in from everybody. I don’t know when the dragon lizards will come, but they might be here soon. I want everybody prepared for the possibility that we need to move. There’s a lot of work to do, to stay here, or to move to another location. Either way, they need to know.” Jen and Everett agreed. He waved and attracted Matki Awrani’s attention and motioned for him to join them.
The four of them started walking towards the back of the cave. As they walked, Matki Awrani noticed that every man in the cave turned and watched Jen. That was when he knew that they weren’t demons at all, but instead were men like him. A large smile broke across his face.
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Mike’s mind was moving through a growing checklist. They’d have to find food, water, and dig latrines. He would have to find out more about capabilities of the engineers, techs, and fabricators, and that meant a big meeting. They walked back through the tunnel, with Matki Awrani limping beside them. The elevator shaft opened up before them.Matki Awrani showed curiosity. Though Mike, Everett and Jen didn’t know it, this was Matki Awrani’s second time in the tunnel. He snuck in here to check on how many eggs were present. It was a very dangerous mission, one he undertook when the Demon Queen had been busy with a rival female.
He watched the three grab the rungs of the ladder and climb down the shaft. Matki Awrani grabbed the rungs, and started down with them. Matki Awrani was careful where he put his feet, careful of the slick blood and fluids, plus all of the metal cable and the metal of the top of the elevator. They stepped out into the play room. Matki Awrani was in awe. He looked around the room itself, and how big it was. He was amazed. The light from the ceiling was unprecedented. He knew these people were not demons, but he was beginning to believe that they were gods. “They have captured the light of the sun,” he thought.
Mike looked at Matki, and smiled. Mike knew that this primitive man had probably never seen anything like this in his life. Mike looked across the room at the people looking back at him, and at Matki. He wasn’t sure who looked more surprised. Everett was already walking over to the crowd, and Mike put his hand on Matki Awrani’s shoulder, guiding him towards the group. Mike called out, “Hello everybody, I would like to introduce you to Matki, a local that has given us some information about our area.”
The scientist came over immediately. “Is he human?”was the thought in their minds. The group walked over to Matki Awrani and Mike, surrounding them. Dr. Nachman spoke, “Okay, everybody, we’ll have plenty of chances to examine the new addition to our group, but I think we need to back away before somebody frightens him into doing something rash, such as violence because he doesn’t understand what we’re doing. It looks like he needs to get that ankle checked out as well.” From that time forward, Dr. Nachman was in charge of Matki Awrani. The group thinned out, giving them some room. Dr. Nachman pointed to himself and said, “Ed,” then pointed at Matki Awrani and said, “Matki?”
Matki Awrani shook his head, pointed at Ed, and then said his name, then he pointed at himself and said, “Matki Awrani.” Mike started. In his mind, the small brown man was Matki. It was part of Mike’s cultural bias to hear two names and think the second name was the familial name, but evidently that was not true here. Everybody started taking turns introducing themselves to Matki Awrani, and telling him their names.
Almost everybody in the facility was now in the play room. Jennifer had done a census. The amount of people surprised Mike. There were 54 people in the facility, approximately. Ditchem’ Mitchem was up on the first floor, pissed off at everybody and everything around him. Jamison was missing. A lot of people were sitting against the slope of the floor. Mike moved so that the angle of the floor allowed people at the back to see over the heads of the people in front. Some had to shift their positions so that they could face him. People at the back of the crowd were standing. Every one of their faces showed concern. They were quiet. None of them looked happy, and Mike couldn’t blame them. They were fearful about what they were going to hear. Mike started talking, “How is everybody?”
People started mumbling. The mumbling increased in intensity, until people were shouting questions at him. He let the shouting and yelling continue for the better part of a minute, and the crowd realized that he wasn’t going to talk until they stopped yelling. The noise subsided.
He pointed to one lady, Willow Banks, and said, “Yes Ma’am, what’s your question?”
She blushed. Since she was in her early thirties, she wasn’t used to being called ma’am. “Must be a Yankee,” Mike thought to himself. He grew up with his dad boxing his ears if he didn’t show respect to women and his elders. That and his military background ensured the continued use of the title.
Willow said in a melodic, clear voice, “Where are we? What happened?”
Mike cleared his throat. “Willow,” he nodded to her, “I have no idea where we are, or what happened to us.”
That admission caused the noise to swell again. He knew that his honesty would probably cause consternation among the crowd. He held up his hands, and motioned for the crowd to quiet down. The noise subsided, and he started talking again.
“Right now, I wish I could tell you that everything was okay, and that everything top side was exactly the way it was before we came to work. I wish I could tell you that you could walk over to the elevator there,” and he gestured at the clawed and sheared elevator doors, “hop in, ride it up to the warehouse up top, walk through the building, get in your cars and drive home.” He paused and took a breath, “but I can’t tell you that.”
Somebody in the back of the group yelled, “What the hell is going on?” Another yelled, “Where are we?” The crowd was talking all at once, some yelling, and Mike wasn’t going to be able to calm them down. One of the women in the crowd was crying. The crowd possessed its own life. Mike had to wait them out. Finally the recriminations and yelling died. The crowd was sullen. They faced him expectantly. The expressions in the crowd varied from anger to hurt and dismay. He nodded to the crowd and started speaking.
“There’s nothing beyond that elevator that anybody here ever expected to see. When the incident first happened, a large creature, looking like a nightmare version of a dragon and a dinosaur melded together, ripped open the elevator doors, and came crawling in. My team, with the help of Lieutenant Pang, and a few of you, killed it.”
At this, he nodded at Pang. Those in the crowd that hadn’t been present had heard about the attack of the dragon creature, and her actions to fight the bear pack attack above. They looked at the young Lieutenant with renewed respect. She blushed at the attention.
Mike smiled, thinking, “All hail the mighty Dragon Slayer.”
Some of the crowd smiled in response to the blush. One of the tech fabricators, a burly man named Will Christopher, only a few inches taller than Pang, gave her a pat on the back that made her step forward with one foot to keep from falling over.
Mike raised his voice and continued, “After that, my team went up the elevator shaft, and we found nothing that made sense to us, or anyone else that has seen it. Everybody who has been up the elevator shaft, walked out the tunnel, and looked outside can tell you the same thing. Nothing is the same up there.”
Second Lieutenant Latricia Franklin raised her hand, andspoke when Mike pointed to her,“What’s up there? I only came down here about an hour ago. I heard stories, but I don’t know what’s happening here.”
Mike smiled, “Well ma’am, I wish I could tell you everything, but you probably know most of it.” He continued, “The world, well, it blinked for lack of a better term. And when it came back, we were in the situation that we find oursel
ves now. The facility that we’re in,” Mike lifted his hands to the building around him, “tilted, and the rest of the facility above the 1st floor is gone. Part of the elevator shaft, the very top where the concrete blast door protected the old missile silo, is completely gone. There’s a cave where that concrete bunker used to be. The structure up top, the warehouse, the guard shack, the administrative offices, the parking lot, are all gone. Our old reality, is gone.” The enormity of the situation shifted their emotions to a bleakness that dominated their features.
“I don’t know if this is a bad dream, if we suddenly shifted to an alternate reality, a different universe or this is a hallucination. I just don’t know.” Mike paused, “What I do know is this. My team and your security team stopped twenty large bear like creatures from coming into this facility. Had that pack of animals gotten in here, they would have hunted down everybody, and killed everyone. But, I want you to know, as long as we’re alive, we’ll continue to protect you. I know that we have some extremely smart people here. We have computer techs, doctors, PhDs, fabricators, electricians, bio-mechanical engineers, and good people like you, Latricia. We’ll figure this out. Somehow, someway, we’ll figure this out.”
Mike looked at the faces before him. Some were fearful. Some were stunned. Some were resolute, “We’ve maintained security, but we all have to be in survival mode. My team and the security team have done the basics, and secured the area from predators, but we still have a lot to do. Has anybody here been through SERE school?”
A few people, military and civilian, nodded.
“What’s the first thing we need to survive?” Mike asked.
“Water,” several shouted out.
“And what’s next?” Mike asked.
“Food, shelter.”
Mike grinned, “Well, luckily, we have shelter, and according to the smart guys in the tech squad, we have power for,” Mike paused, pointing at Garcia, “how long?” Garcia and Smith were close to each other. As the crowd looked at them, they looked at each other. Garcia shrugged, and Smith turned to Mike. “We don’t know, we haven’t tested the batteries’ capabilities completely. It could be as short as six months. Or, hell, it might last a lifetime.”
Mike shrugged, “So, there you go, we have shelter, we have heat, cooling if we need it. For now.”
Mike looked over at the fabricators. He looked at Hank, the foreman of the fabricators. “Hank, can you make tools for us?”
Hank frowned, and then nodded. “Yeah, if you have the specs, we can build it for you. Our supplies aren’t endless, though. We can fabricate a lot for you, but once the supply of metals are gone, we can’t build anything else.”
Michelle Tomiko spoke up, “Mike, just so you know, Willow, Billy and I, we create the carbon fiber that the mech armor is made from. As long as you can supply us with carbon, we can make you clothes and implements. We have the technology to make the carbon fibers rigid. We just need the casts of the tools that you need.”
Mike smiled, “See, we have enough big brains around here. We can probably solve a lot of problems that are going to crop up.” The faces in front of Mike brightened, knowing that solutions were already being created. “We still need to do a few things. If people need to urinate or defecate, it has to be done upstairs. You have to climb the ladder, and we have to dig a pit so that we can ensure that the feces don’t attract bugs.”
He saw a hesitant hand go up. A young woman, Stephanie Lane, held up her hand.
“Yes Ma’am,” Mike responded.
She looked around, hesitantly, “Ah, I’m deathly afraid of heights. I don’t know if I can get up the ladder.”
Mike turned on the charm for her, “Well, ma’am, you’re going to overcome those fears. Don’t worry, though. Since we have security climbing up and down, we already secured a safety line, with an ascender attached to it, so that we can buckle you in and make sure you don’t fall off of the ladder. If you have problems, get somebody to climb with you. We have security climbing up to work in shifts.” Stephanie’s hands fluttered like small birds as she thanked Mike. Mike could still see that she had some concerns about the heights. Senior Airman Trevino put her hand out on Stephanie’s arm and started talking to her. She seemed to calm down.
Mike continued, “So, we need to have some picks, shovels, hammers, saws, and nails fabricated. We have some building to do, so that we can insure that everybody has some privacy, and that we don’t introduce disease into this facility.”
Mike looked over at Hank, then at Jen. They both nodded their consent to his plan.
Mike looked over at Matki Awrani, who was devouring yet another MRE.
Mike asked the crowd, “We have some chemists here, right?”
It turned out that Michelle, Willow, Billy, Laura Roberts and Jim Wright were all chemists.
“Well, we’re going to need your expertise. I don’t know if you met Matki Awrani,” Mike paused as Matki Awrani looked up to acknowledge the crowd when he heard his name, “but he’s now our native guide. He knows this area like the back of his hand.”
Mike thought to himself, “I hope.”
“We’re going to need him to tell us what’s edible, and what’s not. When he points out the food, I’m going to need you to tell me if it’s actually edible for us.” Understanding flooded the faces around him. “Some of the stuff that is safe for him to eat, may not be safe for us to eat,” Mike explained.
Pang spoke up, “Should he be eating that MRE?”
Mike shrugged his shoulders, “Honestly, it just hit me now, that there may be foods that aren’t safe for us. When I offered him the MRE up top, I didn’t even think that it could be poison to him.” Pang and Mike looked at Matki Awrani. He noticed their interest in him and smiled at them. Dr. Ed voiced their thoughts, “Well, he’s not dead yet.”
Mike turned back to the crowd. “So, if you understand our predicament, we don’t know what the hell is going on around here, but we have had several victorious engagements against some large and very mean predators. That’s thanks to you, and the work you have done here on the mech armor. You are the reason that we are succeeding. And,” pointing at Matki Awrani, “I think my friend there has indicated that there are going to be some more and possibly larger monstrosities like that dragon-dinosaur thing headed this way.”
He paused to see if there were any more questions or concerns. There weren’t, so he continued on, “That in mind, I need for you folks to figure out a few things for us. Food, water, latrines, and defense against those monsters will be a good way to start. If we’re going to survive this place, I need for you to work together. We all have to pull in the same direction, not in a hundred different ones. We need to make this place a little more livable than it currently is. This is the only place we currently have, and it is going to be home until we figure out something more permanent than this.”
A man stood up in the back, “Well, you know about the library, right?”
Mike was confused, he never heard about a library in this facility. “What are you talking about, Mister . . . “
“McFarland, Bobby McFarland. And please, just call me Bobby. I’m talking about the data library that we have in the networ . . . “
He didn’t get his sentence finished before Josh Weitz and Jessica Randall stood up and yelled at him to shut his mouth. Bobby’s face grew red and he started walking over to Randall and Weitz. It was pretty obvious that he was about to punch somebody. Not that Mike wouldn’t appreciate seeing Weitz or Randall stretched out on their butts, but this argument wasn’t conducive to the atmosphere that Mike or Pang wanted to have during this meeting. Mike Crandallstood between them, and then more people pulled them apart. Once they were separated by a good ten feet, Mike walked into the middle.
“What the hell is going on here?” he asked.
Bobby spoke up, “They don’t want you to know.”
Mike looked over at Randall, who was furious, her face turning alternate colors of red and purple. “Shut the he
ll up you idiot! He doesn’t have the clearance to know those things.”
Bobby yelled back at them, “What clearance. What does a security clearance have to do with anything now? We need to survive, you lunatic.”
Weitz yelled at Bobby, “Shut up, shut up. You damn well know nothing! We only kept you around because we couldn’t find anybody to work as cheaply as you did.”
Bobby was furious now. “Know nothing, you idiot? If it wasn’t for me, you never would have figured out the AI to human interface system that allows the mech armor to integrate with the person driving it!”
Pang stepped in. “Everybody shut the hell up.”
Randall wasn’t having any of it, “Screw you, you little Army slut.”
Pang face went from controlled to furious in a millisecond. Evidently she was tired of Randall as well. Pang walked over and punched her. Randall was totally unprepared for that response. Mike didn’t think that Randall would have been able to respond if she had known that Jennifer was going to punch her. Pang had three older brothers to toughen her up. Marines at that. Randall probably never had a physical confrontation in her life. Randall’s nose blossomed into a red flower. Randall crumpled to her knees, blood flowing down the front of her blouse. Everybody backed away from Randall, not knowing what was going to happen next. Pang grabbed Randall’s hair, pulled her head back and then jabbed her knuckle into the pressure point just below the ear, where the jaw met the skull.
“What was that you just said, you scrawny ass bitch? For your edification, I had several opportunities to bed any one of the men on that team, but I politely refused them all. What’s the matter? Pissed that the only man you can find to bed in Wyoming, the land of the horny cowboy, is that jacked up Ditchem’ Mitchem?
Mike tried to take the tension down. “Lieutenant Pang is telling you the truth. Pretty much the entire team was trying to get into her pants, but she shot them all down. They even had atarget name for the high value target, Objective Purple Rain.”