“We wouldn’t have made it without Isaac.”
I looked at Ben and he shrugged as if to say, it’s true.
“Well that’s not exactly right,” I said. “We all were a team and helped each other. If I’d been on my own, there is no way I’d be here.”
Williams didn’t seem interested in our story. He gestured that we should go and we all started for the Rec room.
“Wait!” he called, pulling us up. “This is where the girls say goodbye,” he said. “The Rec room is only for males; you girls have your own in the North Wing. Only the cafeteria is mixed.”
My good mood suddenly dissipated.
“You’re separating us?” I asked.
“Those are the rules,” he said. “Male and female sleeping and living quarters are kept separate. Believe me, it avoids a lot of problems.” I saw his eyes linger on Indigo for a second too long and I felt a flash of protectiveness. I stepped between them.
“Well, rules are rules I guess,” I smiled. “Where is the North Wing?”
He looked at me with an unreadable expression and then opened the door to the Rec room for Ben and me.
“It’s in the North,” he said, putting his hand on my shoulder in a mock friendly way. “You’ll be sleeping in the West Wing. Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll see them around.”
What did he mean by that?
I shook off his hand and grabbed Ben, who I could see was about to protest.
“See you tomorrow,” I said to the girls and gave Indigo and the others a thumbs up. I saw Brooke mouth it’s okay to Ben and he relaxed as Williams led them off, but not before glancing back once with a smirk.
“I’ll be back for you boys soon.”
I decided right then that I didn’t like him.
25
Ben and I entered the Rec room. It was a large open space with a pool table dominating one section. There was also a small area containing gym equipment and another smaller anteroom with a sofa and some chairs.
It wasn’t terribly crowded, there were a couple of men (soldiers, based on their haircuts) using the exercise equipment and three boys playing pool with another man I took to be a soldier. We gravitated towards that group.
We didn’t play, but we did chat briefly to them, mainly the boys who asked how we had come to arrive at the Facility. The three boys had been the first to arrive about three weeks after the Flu had run its course. The soldier, who introduced himself as Daniel Bowman, didn’t say too much. He was concentrating on the game and didn’t seem to be a part of the group.
While the boys were friendly enough, we had run out of things to talk about by the time Williams returned and Ben and I were both happy to be escorted back to our room. For whatever reason, I hadn’t slept well the night before and thought it would be good to get an early night.
Williams led us out into the corridor and we followed it around into the West Wing, which was basically one long hallway lined with doors on either side. He stopped three doors along and swiped his card before ushering us through the door.
Ben and I found ourselves in a long rectangular room. It was basically a dormitory and, except for the fact that there were no windows, reminded me of the army barracks I had seen in movies. There were four double bunks set against one of the longer walls. Williams had told us we could use the ones closest to the door and pointed out the bathroom at the opposite end of the room before leaving.
Once we were alone, I had a snoop around. Although there was no one in the room at the time, based on the toiletries and other items on the small bedside shelves, it appeared that nearly all of the other bunks were being used. I assumed it would be people like us, refugees from the Flu, rather than soldiers, who I assumed would all be housed on the lower level.
“Dibs the top bunk,” said Ben, shooting up the rungs of the ladder and falling back on his mattress.
I smiled, it was good to see him still so carefree after the hardship of our flight to the safe haven and the strangeness of our new situation.
“Well, that dinner was interesting,” said Ben, looking down at me. “What did you think of the Professor and his strange friend? Do you think they might be bum chums?”
“Huh?” I looked at him dumbly, unfamiliar with the term.
“You know, boyfriends?” he laughed.
The comment surprised me. Given all that had happened, and the fact that about 150 million people had been wiped off the face of the Earth, human traits like intolerance had really been put into perspective for me. I didn’t give the remark any oxygen, Ben was just a teenage kid like me and I knew that he was trying to be funny, not mean, but it just felt a bit pre ‘end of the world’ to me. What did it matter now if you were gay or straight, old or young, black, white or orange with blue polka dots? What did it matter before? The virus didn’t discriminate.
“I don’t think so, but there is something a little off about that Ragg guy. I don’t think it matters if he likes men or women, he looks like the kind of guy who would pull wings off bugs for fun.”
“Yeah, he is a bit strange,” he agreed. “Well it all seems very well run though, don’t you think? Curfews and disciplines and what not.”
“Hmmm, I guess,” I said, unwilling to comment too much.
I was suddenly paranoid that the room might be bugged. It was a military facility after all. I pretty much shut down the conversation, complaining that I was tired. I didn’t want us to risk saying too much in case it could compromise Sonny’s situation.
Of course I didn’t get to sleep for a while, and found myself replaying the conversation with the Professor in my mind. A few things bothered me, niggling little worries that I couldn’t quite pin down. I guess in the end it was a general feeling of uneasiness. I left it alone eventually, but made a mental note to follow up first thing about Sonny—I was not going to let that slide, and of course I wanted to see Luke as well.
It was strange. After our few days of rest and recuperation, I had been glad to relax and let the mantle of leadership slip from my shoulders, to blend into the crowd and try and make a go of this new situation. Now, after our meal with the Professor, I found myself again worrying and feeling responsible for the whole group.
Did I want that? Maybe I should just look after number one. Let things fall as they may and let people look after themselves. After all, we were safe, warm and fed and that was what we had been searching for. I decided right then that I would let it go. Decided to just accept that we were safe, that we were in our new home and that the doubt I was feeling was just a hangover from the harrowing experiences we’d had since the invasion.
Calmed by my decision to let go of the responsibility of leadership and lulled by the soft snoring of Ben coming from above me, I finally fell asleep.
I’m not sure how long I slept. It was a deep, dreamless sleep and I woke slowly to the sound of shuffling feet and whispers. I opened my eyes. There were three strange boys standing at the foot of our bunk bed. They stopped talking when I sat up and looked at them.
“Hey,” said one of them.
The speaker had soft brown hair and a sprinkling of freckles on his face. Behind the thick glasses he wore, his eyes shone with a lively intelligence. He, and the second of the boys, a wiry lad with messy hair and a big nose, looked about thirteen. The third, a big strapping boy with short black hair and pale skin, looked about my age. They were all dressed in the white T-shirts and black pants and I wondered briefly if those clothes would start to feel like prison garb after a while.
“Hey,” I said. “I’m Isaac.” I pointed to the bunk above my head. “That’s Ben.”
“I’m Paul, this is Beau and Toby.”
I weighed them up. They all seemed like normal sort of kids and even though the big one, Toby, was as big as a full grown man, he didn’t seem particularly threatening. I climbed off the mattress and shook hands with each of them. I noticed their hands were calloused and tough and I asked Paul what discipline they did.
“We’
re miners.”
“I meant to ask the Professor about that, what exactly are you mining?”
“Well it’s not mining exactly, that’s just what they call it. It’s tunneling.
“Tunneling?”
“Yeah, we’re digging a tunnel through Drake Mountain. The Council wants a second way out in case the Chinese discover the lodge and work out we’re in the mountain. Personally I think it’s just a way of keeping us worker bees all busy, because even if they find the lodge, it isn’t likely they’ll work out that the facility is inside the mountain.”
“I think they might know all about the Lodge now…”
I told them the story of our flight from Lincoln with the Chinese hot on our tails and I was surprised at how greedily they listened to every word, guffawing and asking questions about anything that wasn’t quite clear.
“No way!” yelled Beau, when I told him that I had emptied my pistol into the chopper. “That’s ballsy man.”
“Not really,” I said, secretly pleased at his endorsement. “I thought I was as good as dead and was hoping to take a few of them with me. It was probably pretty stupid actually.” I finished the rest of the story and couldn’t fail to notice how they all looked at each other when I told them about the intervention of the facility’s soldiers.
“Did it happen like that for you too?”
“Kind of, although we didn’t have an army chasing us. We were taken in by two soldiers from the facility when they were on patrol. We flagged them down, but we still ended up with guns in our faces. It was pretty freaky.”
“You were together?”
“Yeah, there were the three of us and my sister Ava as well.”
“Oh right, where is she?”
Again they looked at each other, but instead of answering, Beau asked quickly, “So how many were with you altogether?”
I left it alone, but I made a mental note to ask Paul in private about his sister, clearly none of them wanted to discuss it, either because they were frightened or because it made them uncomfortable. Of course I also wanted to know how they had fared since the invasion, how they had survived before being picked up and brought to the Facility.
I told them our story, even touching upon the ones we had lost. I was pretty tired by the end but telling my story to kids my age seemed somehow more therapeutic than talking it out with Colonel Randall. Not sure why, but it did.
“So you said the Council wants the tunnel? I thought the Professor was in charge?”
The three boys looked at each other.
“Well he is really,” Paul continued. “But the Council was formed after some of the workers demanded to have a say in running the place. I think he gave in as a way of keeping the natives from getting restless. They have no real power.”
Beau now gave Paul a pointed look, almost as if he thought the boy in the glasses was talking too much. While I didn’t think they were keeping things from me, I got the feeling they were holding a little back, which was probably fair enough, considering they’d only just met me.
“I better wake Ben, he will want to meet you too.”
I couldn’t believe he had slept through my whole conversation with the three boys and for a second I was worried for him. He was dead still, just a shape under the covers and had a pillow resting over his eyes. I shook his arm vigorously and was rewarded when he sat bolt upright and yelled, “WHA…!!??”
I couldn’t help laughing. “Sorry old chap! I have some people who want to meet you.”
Squinting at me in the sudden light, his blonde hair a mess, he fixed me with a stare. “Did you just call me old chap? I see your knowledge of the English vernacular was learned from old black and white movies… buddy.”
The other boys laughed at our banter but could see that Ben was not totally amused at having his sleep disturbed. Wearing a half-smile, Ben climbed down and went to the bathroom. We chatted for another hour or so after that but it was obvious the boys were tired after a long day’s work, so we went to bed without the conversation becoming any deeper than swapping a few survival stories.
26
I was lashing out at Chen, but he was too fast for me. He dodged my blows and laughed at me. The scornful sound enraged me, and while I was scared, I kept pursuing him, knowing that if I didn’t kill him, he would kill me. Why didn’t he strike back? We both knew he could beat me. He was bigger, stronger, faster. What was he waiting for? I ran at him with one last supreme effort to punch his hateful face. Again he eluded me.
“Stand and fight!” I yelled, bent over with my hands on my thighs, trying to catch my breath.
He stood still, grinning at me demonically and opened his mouth to speak - BEEEP….BEEEP…BEEEP… the impossibly shrill beeping emanating from his throat terrified me and I awoke with a start, my heart thumping hard in my chest.
The electronic beeping ceased after the sixth beep and I sat up, swinging my legs over the side of the bed as I tried to calm my breathing. I rubbed my eyes. I didn’t feel as refreshed as I should have, probably thanks to the late night talk with Paul and the others.
I could tell by the groans above me that Ben was in the same predicament and I felt a pang of guilt for waking him up to meet the boys. It wouldn’t have hurt to leave it until morning. I got up and rushed to the bathroom as I saw our new dorm mates starting to rouse. I didn’t want to line up for the john, the way my bladder felt, I wouldn’t be able to hang on longer than a few seconds.
We said our good mornings to Paul and the other two boys. Paul gave us a brief rundown on the day’s schedule. When the door was unlocked we would go to the showers and then onto breakfast before the boys headed off to the mine. He wasn’t quite sure what would happen with us as we hadn’t been allocated a discipline yet. At 1.00pm there would be a 45 minute lunch period for the ‘miners’. He told us that the lunches were staggered between the disciplines from 12.15 onwards. He didn’t get to tell us the rest because the door was opened by a guard we didn’t recognize and we were marched off to the showers.
Guards, curfews, work gangs. It struck me as we followed the guard, that if anything, our ‘safe haven’ was much more like a prison than a military or scientific facility and, that while a part of me understood that it might have to be that way, it left me uncomfortable and almost certain that there was another way it could be. But really, what was I complaining about? Better here than in a Chinese prison camp or clean up gang….or dead.
The showers were already heavy with steam and other bodies when we got there. I had to line up for several minutes before I took my turn. It looked like there were about forty other boys in our ‘shift’, with only ten shower stalls to share. Everyone dressed in clean blue coveralls that were in a pile by the door and slowly filed out as they finished dressing.
Paul and I again dressed in the ‘uniform’ of white T-shirt and black pants. As I put my canvass shoes back on I noticed that everyone had the same shoes, albeit in various states of disrepair. I asked Paul why they didn’t have boots. Surely they would have been better for the work he was doing?
“They don’t have enough boots in supply, only these useless canvas sneakers. One boy’s foot was crushed last week, so it pays to be real careful.”
We were escorted to the cafeteria where we lined up and were served a tray of sausages, scrambled eggs and toast. I scanned the room as I walked to a table with Ben and my roommates. There were about thirty men and boys all in the blue coveralls. I assumed they were all on the mining shift. Did that mean that Ben and I would also be joining the mining crew or was it just that we were housed with other miners for the moment? No one had told us any different yet. Breaking rocks and digging in an enclosed space didn’t exactly sound inviting to me and I hoped the Professor would keep his word about letting us nominate which discipline we preferred.
Breakfast looked a lot better than it tasted. It was clear that the eggs were made from the powdered eggs that the Professor had mentioned, but more disappointing were the sausages. T
hey were vegetarian sausages, and had a distinct nutty flavor. Ben and I gave each other a look of distaste while the other boys wolfed them down as if it was the last supper. Paul caught our look and grinned.
“You’ll get used to it.”
“I don’t think so,” retorted Ben.
Regardless, we ate everything on our plate and chatted quietly to the boys. Most of the people around us seemed focused on their plates. I avoided the subject of Paul’s sister, for the moment, I still wanted to ask him about that privately.
It turned out that their group was from a suburb of Lincoln. After the Pyongyang flu had killed all of the adults, Beau and Toby had sought out their friend Paul and holed up with him and his sister Ava.
They had been doing their best to survive. There had been no sign of the Chinese army back then and after food in the house had run out they had been able forage and scavenge enough from Lincoln to keep them relatively well fed. They had seen other kids, some alone and some in groups, but Paul had thought it wise to keep their group small. As he talked I found my respect for him growing.
Unlike us, they didn’t come to the Facility because of the signal. One day while foraging, they had actually caught sight of one of the patrols the Professor had sent out. After the initial shock of seeing adults, American soldiers to boot, they hid and observed the patrol rounding up another group of kids. Ava had wanted to flag them down straight away, but the cautious Paul had insisted they watch and wait. He wanted to make sure that these were friendlies and weigh up a lot of possibilities before they made contact.
“Of course I could see that they were American, but that didn’t necessarily mean they were friendlies.”
In the end, the food situation and weather had forced their hand and they decided to turn themselves over to one of the patrols. It took nearly a week and a half for another patrol to come through and by then, things had become quite desperate for the four kids.
“We were pretty much the last to be picked up by a patrol, they basically only send them out on night missions for food and supplies now.”
America Falls (Book 2): On The Run Page 17