The Freezer (Genesis Endeavor Book 1)

by David Kersten

  Caleb skeptically said, “How do you propose we turn them into cold storage rooms?”

  Jack smiled and said, “I don’t really know, I’m not an engineer, but I imagine that we have a few engineers in our population that could get us an answer pretty quickly.” Marcus and Theodore nodded.

  “How do you propose to transport them here? Fourteen hundred heads would require far more capacity than any of our transports can handle.” That came from William.

  Jack smiled again and said, “I had a great conversation with Tiny the day I met him. He had been training on how to set up landing strips behind enemy lines. Now I am not an expert on anything like that, but I bet if you put Tiny and a couple guys from Army engineering corps in a room together you could probably have a way to quickly go in and build a landing strip. Once you have a strip, I understand you have a very large transport plane you can land there?” He had posed this last question directly at William, since he seemed to be the man in charge of that aspect of New Hope.

  William mulled it over for a moment then said, “Yes, if that transport had a place to land, we could probably do it.”

  Marcus leaned forward and said, “Jack, I am impressed. You are living up to and even exceeding my expectations.” Jack suspected it was an empty compliment, designed to make a leader’s underlings feel good about their accomplishments while subtly pointing out the underling’s status under the leader. He was actually used to this sort of thing. He smiled despite this suspicion. “Teague, get him what he needs to get started on this. I expect a detailed report on it first thing in the morning.” He looked at the rest of the people in the room and said “Let’s meet in my chambers, we need to discuss the political fallout this operation will bring from both Cali and the other communities. Then we need to contact our friends to talk about today’s actions.”

  Teague said, “I will join you when I am finished with Jack.” Marcus, already on his way out, nodded without another word as if he expected it.

  When the door closed, Teague turned to Jack and said, “Well played. I’m truly impressed. Just between you and me, Jack, I think they are more concerned with how you bowled them over so easily than the political ramifications of your ideas. And now I know how you got your nickname. When you set your mind to something, you get it.”

  Jack nodded, impressed himself that Teague had seen what he was doing. “I’ve been dealing with bureaucrats most of my life. I know how to satisfy them and get them to step aside so I can do what needs to be done.” Jack’s brow furrowed. “I don’t understand you, Teague. You’re supposed to be part of the council, but it seems you are more of a gopher than anything else. Why is that?”

  Teague was uncomfortable with the question and actually seemed to wince at the gopher comment. “The others were research scientists when the final collapse of the EoS took place. In that society they were the upper class. The royalty if you will. I was just a lowly medical doctor, more of an assistant than anything else. The only reason I am on the council is because I helped them all to escape and kept them alive when they should have perished from the biological weapons, with the rest of the population. They say I am their equal, but they still cling to their old ways. Our friendship is old though, and even though they sometimes don’t consider me quite their equal, they still respect me as much as I respect them. We have been through a lot, and they will never forget that it would not have been possible without me.”

  Jack accepted this, but suspected there was a little more to it. He let it drop. “Fair enough, now let’s talk about our next move...”

  Chapter 25

  Jack was in his room, at his desk when the datapad beeped. He reached over and grabbed it, expecting the call from Teague. He pressed the button to answer. “Are they ready?”

  “Yes, everyone is assembled at the training room. I hope you put on a good show, they are getting a bit restless.” Jack pressed the button again and headed out.

  When the elevator opened on the fourth floor, Wendy was standing there waiting. “Jack, how are you feeling?” She was obviously concerned, and Jack sensed that she wanted a heads up on what was going on in the meeting.

  “I’m feeling perfect actually.” He kissed her on the lips and then said, “I’m a little nervous to meet all these people though.”

  She relaxed a little and said, “So can you give me any hint as to what’s going on? We haven’t had too many meetings like this, and people are starting to wonder.”

  “I’m just about to explain it all, but don’t worry, I have faith that everything will work out.” He smiled confidently. “By the way, what’s a Hopper?”

  Her brow furrowed in confusion. “It’s a nickname other communities use for those of us from New Hope – Sort of a slang term. Why?”

  “Never mind, I was just curious.”

  The room was less than half full, but it was a big room and there were more than he had anticipated. He studied the crowd for a moment and judged there to be at least seventy people, maybe more. All eyes had turned to him and he looked for familiar faces before beginning. He spotted everyone he had met so far, with the only exceptions being the little girl and the council members. Teague was here, however, and he approached Jack. “Thanks for getting everyone together Teague, I appreciate it.” Teague nodded and sat down off to the side.

  “Good afternoon everyone. Thank you for being here. As most of you have probably heard, we had a little incident today at the Freezer. Emmet Johnson was killed in the fighting, and Chuck was wounded. In case anyone is wondering, Emmet gave his life to save mine and Chuck’s, and quite possibly all of us.” Jack lowered his head to give a moment of silence for Emmet. Most people in the room did the same, and Jack even heard someone towards the back row sniffle.

  After a sufficient pause, he continued, “Thankfully, we believe we were successful in keeping the facility a secret, but it’s clear that Cali, and possibly some other communities, are aware that something is going on up there. We need to act fast if we’re going to secure our future.”

  Jack let that sink in for a moment, then shifted gears. “First, I would like everyone in this room who is an engineer or was in the engineering corps to stand up and move to the left side of the room.” A few people stood, and some others got a confused look on their face, looked around at other people in the room, and hesitantly got up. Some people on the left got out of their chairs and moved to the right of the room to accommodate the engineers.

  “Great, thank you. Now, whoever is not in the group that just moved who has had experience maintaining this facility, please move toward the middle of the room.” More people got up, including Wendy, and moved to the middle of the room. Wendy shot Jack a confused look as she changed seats. He returned it with a wink and a smile. “Excellent. Now, anyone who has not been moved yet who has experience with salvaging patrols, please move to the right, and anyone that doesn’t fit any of these groups, please move to the back row.” More people moved and now Jack could get a clear picture of what assets he had available.

  When everyone had been seated, Jack said, “Thank you, I appreciate your patience here. The musical chairs part is over, so you can get comfortable.” There were a few chuckles. “Before I go any further, let me introduce myself to those of you I have not yet met. My name is Jack Taggart. I was reborn a few days ago, but I have learned a lot about what has happened since I died in 1966. I had a large hand in building the facility in Montana, although when I built it I didn’t know what it was for. I don’t remember anything about the last year before I died, but I was apparently the first resident of that facility. I was in the military for twenty years, I joined at the end of World War Two, and served in Korea, first as an enlisted man and then as an officer. When that was over, I ended up in charge of building underground bunkers at various military bases around the world. It started with some small command bunkers and eventually I was building underground facilities like the one we are in now.” He had never built anything on this scale, but there
was no need to talk about that right now.

  “The reason we called you all in here is to come up with a plan to collect as many subjects as we can from the facility in Montana, and store them here until we can process them.” Jack expected an outburst from some people, but was met with silence. He wondered if Marcus had ever come to the general population for advice on what to do, and guessed that he had not. That would certainly explain the silence.

  He pressed a few buttons on his datapad and the screen behind him came on. It was the same schematic he had shown the council. An overhead view of level six was displayed, and he pressed another button that highlighted seven rooms. “First challenge we have here is to convert these rooms to be cold enough to keep the subjects frozen until we need them.” He first turned to Teague and asked, “Teague, how cold do the subjects need to be to prevent damage?”

  Teague was caught off guard, not expecting to be called on like that and took a moment to compose himself. “Uh... three hundred degrees below zero Fahrenheit give or take ten degrees.”

  Jack nodded. “Okay, engineers, can it be done and what do we need to do it?” There was silence in the room for about thirty seconds, and Jack was just about to ask if they understood when they all started talking amongst themselves at once. It lasted perhaps five minutes, and finally one stood up and said, “I think it can be done, but there are some things we will need that we do not have here.”

  Jack looked at Teague and said, “Can you write these down?” Teague nodded. He had been taking notes on the meeting already for the council, and started a list. Turning back to the engineer who was standing, he said, “What are you going to need?”

  The engineer looked at his the people around him as if hoping to get an answer from them. Unfortunately, his taking the initiative to speak had sort of promoted him to be the representative for the engineers. “Uh... well, for starters we need liquid nitrogen. Lots of it. Then we need pumps and heat exchangers. We will need some heavy duty insulation. Power is not an issue, but we will need to drill some large holes in the concrete walls. Also, we will need to modify the entrance to the rooms so that we can get in and out without letting that cold air out. We will also need a cold suit – someone will have to go in and out to get bodies. Other than that I think we could do it.” He looked around at the others looking for confirmation, and a few nodded.

  Teague had been writing down what they needed, and Jack went to the controls for the monitor and pushed some buttons, switching the screen from his datapad to Teague’s. “Okay, so this is what we need. Do we have any machinists here?” One man from the engineering group raised his hand and one member of the combat group in the back raised theirs. “Excellent. Let me ask you, could you machine the pumps or heat exchangers?”

  The engineer spoke first. “Heat exchangers are easy, we just need lots of aluminum and copper tubing. The pumps are a little more difficult but we have the machinery to make them, we just need designs to follow.

  Jack turned back to the man who was now representing the engineer group and asked, “Is this something you could design?” One female engineer said, “Yeah, no problem. As soon as we can get the math on the volume requirements, I can have a design whipped up in no time. We probably have the materials on hand to do it too.” Jack nodded and looked at the list again.

  “So we need Aluminum, copper tubing, insulation, and either the materials to make a cold suit or an actual working suit.” He now turned to the salvagers. “Have any of you seen any of these materials on a scavenging run?”

  They looked at each other, and a couple nodded. One spoke up. “I found a building in Iowa, I think, that had a huge cold storage room. I bet the insulation there would be good, and maybe there is some copper tubing and such as well. It was more of a freezer though, for food.”

  Another man said, “You damned idiot, that was in Idaho, not Iowa!” There was some laughter.

  “Shut the hell up George, I said I thought it was in Iowa! Now that I think about it, it was in Idaho. It was probably a potato factory.” He looked proud of himself for coming to that conclusion.

  The other man, George, said, “They didn’t make potatoes in a factory, they grew them. Idiot.” More laughter. Before this escalated into a fight, Jack jumped in.

  “Okay, good, good, we have a potential location for insulation, and maybe some copper tubing and aluminum. Anything else?” While this was going on, Teague continued writing notes.

  Another man stood and said, “I might know where some aluminum can be found. It’s a long shot though.” He turned to the engineers and asked, “Would copper and aluminum wire be good? We can melt it and use it right?” He got some nods, and a Jack saw a few eyes light up in the salvaging group. Obviously more people knew where to find wire.

  Jack now turned to the maintenance group. “Do you see any challenges in converting those rooms? Is the drilling going to be a problem? Hanging insulation? And we will need shelving, lots of shelving.” The maintenance people all spoke at once. Jack gave it a minute then said, loudly, “Please, one at time, one at a time!” They went quiet, and an older man stood up.

  “I have the most experience keeping this place running. I have been doing it for almost two hundred years. The modifications you want will be no problem at all. We can talk to the scavengers about materials for the doors you need, and should be able to do this fairly easily.” There was some grumbling with the group, but many of them nodded in agreement.

  “So the next question is how quickly can this be done?” Now the room was lively. Each group with the exception of the combat group was talking amongst themselves. Jack went and sat with Teague for a few minutes, letting them figure things out. This project was starting to take on a mind of its own, which was exactly what Jack had counted on.

  After almost ten minutes, Jack stood up and asked for everyone to be quiet. “Engineering, how long do you think this will take?”

  The spokesman stood up and said, “We need two days to get the plans down in the computer, but we can have a specific list of materials by tonight.”

  Jack looked to the maintenance group. “Maintenance?”

  The old man stood again. “If we can get the drilling locations and requirements for the doors, we can start in the morning. I estimate that we could have all seven rooms ready in a week.”

  Jack turned to the salvagers. “How long to get the stuff we need?”

  George stood this time and said, “It depends on how many flyers we can get out there. If we can get medium transports and have three groups I think we can have all materials in three days, barring any difficulties. We can hit that Idaho place tomorrow morning and have the insulation here by afternoon.”

  Jack finally turned to Teague and said, “Can we get three groups out there to scavenge?” Teague nodded.

  “Okay, I want one volunteer from the combat group to go along on each scavenging missions, so that all scavengers can be focused on finding what they need instead of looking out for deer.” There was laughter from many people in the room, confusion on some people’s faces. Obviously Emmet had told his story to more than one person.

  “Next order of business: Transportation. Tiny, you told me that you trained a group to go into hostile territory and set up a runway to get aircraft in. Can you do that here?”

  Just like Teague, Tiny was not expecting the sudden attention, and he almost looked scared, which was an interesting sight to see considering his size and stature. “Jack, that was different. We don’t have the equipment to do it. The enemy here is different too, we would need to approach this in a totally different way.” He paused for about two beats, then asked, “What do you need an airstrip for?”

  “The large transport plane.” Tiny had known the answer, but needed time to think. Jack figured this and said, “Tiny, take your time. Think about it for a minute.”

  He turned to the rest of the group and said, “I imagine that we will need to be able to fly in a bulldozer. Does anyone happen to have one hand
y?” Laughs went all around.

  Wendy spoke up now. “I know where there is one that we could have in working condition pretty easily.” Jack turned to her and smiled.

  “Go on.” was all he said.

  “There’s one at S.C.” There were a couple gasps and groans, and the room went silent. Jack looked around in confusion.

  Teague volunteered, “S.C. is Saber Cusp, the abandoned EoS city to the south.”

  Jack nodded his thanks. “Is there a problem with getting it?” The room erupted again, everyone talking at once. “Please people, one at a time!” It quieted down, and George stood up.

  “Jack, that place is death. People left there for a reason! I think I speak for most people here, nobody wants to risk exposure to whatever latent biologicals left behind.” He turned to Teague, “Doc, you know first-hand the nightmares that exist there.” Jack looked at Teague, who stood up.

  “It’s true, there are dangers. Automated defenses left on, Mutes inhabiting the areas that are relatively safe, and of course the possibility of exposure to the now ancient weapons of mass destruction. However, the council has discussed it occasionally over the past few years, and I believe we can handle most of the problems that might come up. Frankly speaking, we have anticipated the need for heavier equipment in the near future, and our old home is the most likely place to salvage what we will need.”

  There were more murmurs of dissent, but for now Jack ignored them and turned to the combat group. “Who among you has the most experience leading people in combat, either here or before you were reborn?”

  Three people stood in the group. One was Chin, the scarred man that Jack had met two days ago. The two others were a man around twenty six or twenty seven and a man who appeared to be in his late forties. “Chin, what experience do you have?”

  “Well, I’ve been running patrols for twenty five years here, and have seen my share of skirmishes. I didn’t get my nickname by cutting myself shaving.” He pointed to his face and the scar.