Manny
“Chef Saldana.” The reporter smiled at Manny as he walked into the conference room. “I barely recognize you without your white coat.”
Manny tugged on the collar of his starched dress shirt. “My wife said I had to wear it. Look nice for the celebration.” He grinned. Some might razz him for taking orders from her, but he knew better. The last thirty years would have been very boring if she hadn’t started bossing him around. “She’s planning to take lots of pictures today.”
The reporter indicated the chair on the left before sitting in the one on the right. “Will she be joining us for the interview?”
“No.” He slowly lowered himself onto the cushion. Although three years shy of fifty, there were some days he felt nearly a hundred. “Beth is busy rounding up the Niño’s and our children. Jose and Michael live outside these days.”
Outside. He shuddered then shifted into the sunlight. As much as he loved the heat, he preferred life in the caves. He and Beth had raised the niño’s there, she’d given birth to their three children and they had spent the last years with Mildred and Connie. It was home.
“I heard you are cooking the celebratory feast this evening.”
“I am.” He clasped his hands in his lap. It felt odd not to be shelling peas or chopping something. He understood why his youngest son always got into trouble at school. Sitting still was hard. “I’m serving roasted buffalo for most of us and MREs for you youngsters who think they taste good.”
The novelty would wear off pretty quickly if the younger generation were forced to eat them day-after-day, meal-after-meal. He knew it certainly did him.
“What about your famous toaster pastry trifle?” She licked her lips. “It was my favorite as a child.”
He blushed. Almost all the young adults grew up on his cooking. They often sent him an email asking him to prepare their favorite meal for their anniversary or birthday. “You would throw such fits when your father made you eat your entree first.”
She chuckled. “Don’t tell Dad, but now that I’m on my own, I eat dessert first.”
“Your secret’s safe with me, but I think you just recorded it.”
“I can edit out.” Smoothing her ponytail over her shoulder, she tapped her epad screen. “Chef Saldana, what were you before moving to Dark Hope?”
Manny tensed. He knew they’d want to know about his past. Everyone these days seemed mad to know about life before the Redaction, before the anthrax attack, before the meltdown.
It was a foreign land they wanted to visit.
Time had sprinkled fairy dust on an extinct world, making folks believe it was better than it had been.
Although he’d mourned the loss of that world, he never would have become the man he was today. The man worthy of his wife, his children and the people who thought of him as family.
That old world would only have seen him as a criminal.
For the rest of his life, he’d be pigeon-holed by a stupid event in his youth.
“Chef?”
“I was a cook then. Flipping burgers, making burritos, and chopping vegetables—you name it, I did it.”
The reporter shook her head. “So the apocalypse didn’t really change your life much.”
“It changed my life completely, but it didn’t change my job. In fact, I became a chef because of it.” He’d probably been confined to short-order cooking for the rest of his life, in the previous world.
“I understand there was a chef in Dark Hope at the beginning. Did you train under her?”
Manny’s hands shook. Chef Jardin didn’t deserve to be remembered. Besides stealing the fresh vegetables, she’d stolen the seeds he’d painstakingly saved for the farmers and the eggs and milk the ranchers had provided. He hoped she rotted in Hell.
“Originally, we were told we’d never be able to go outside. But Doc’s Mistake turned out to be an amazing blessing.”
“Doc’s Mistake?”
Manny cleared his throat. Doctor Spanner never had a problem admitting to her mistakes, it was only this generation that seemed to want to place her on the pedestal. “Doctor Spanner estimated the nuclear fuel rods would burn for decades; instead, they burned for just a month and a half. A month after that and our sailors rescued folks stranded in Europe and Africa and brought them here. One of those new citizens was a Chef. He trained me and together we created the cooking classes available for everyone through the internet.”
“Did you ever feel that as Chef your contributions were overlooked or downplayed in the building of the new society?”
“In the beginning, all I did was warm up MREs. So yeah, it was easy to downplay my contribution. But as the months wore on, my home-cooked meals and makeshift treats lifted spirits. Even now, I work to create meals that help fight cancer in its earliest stages. We’re kicking cancer’s ass on all fronts.” Manny slapped his hand over his mouth. “You’ll have to edit that part out. Beth will have my hide, if you don’t.”
The reporter nodded. “You have my word.”
“Have you talked to Justin yet?”
“Yes.” Megan nodded. “Mr. Quartermain was kind enough to show us his records from when he first set up the common store.”
“I think we all celebrated the day Justin found that freight car of soap and shampoo. But the other stuff, the dishes, tablecloths and pillows, they made us all feel at home in the caves. Still do for that matter.”
“On the monument that’s been built to honor you pioneers of the afterworld, Doctor Spanner insisted you be on the sculpture. Do you have any comments on that?”
Heat flooded his cheeks. He hated being on that monument. So many others deserved to be remembered not just the six that had been immortalized. “Doctor Spanner and the Sergeant-Major may have been the heart of the new world, but I was its stomach. The Doc will be the first to tell you that I was just as important as anyone else. That every person mattered.”
Sunnie
Sunnie bounced into the conference room, her husband at her side. “Which one is the hot seat?”
Megan turned around, her ponytail slapping her back. “The one on the right. Why?”
She smiled. “I wanna make sure Beau sits in it.”
“Beau?” Megan moved another chair onto the stage.
“Beauregard Robertson.” Robertson sat in the right chair. “I rue the day I told her my name.”
“I thought that was the day we named our son after you.” Sunnie smiled. A son that was fortunate enough to be just like his dad. Not that living with Robertson was easy. He tended to be a little bossy even after all these years. But he still made her laugh.
“If I hadn’t told you, I never would have had a son called Beauregard.”
“You never would have had a son or your two daughters.” She poked him in the ribs. “Telling me your name was part of the deal.”
One of the parts. They were constantly negotiating the terms of his surrender.
Robertson waggled his eyebrows and leered at her. “I don’t regret the deal.”
Megan clapped her hands. “All right you two, this is a family program.”
Robertson rested his arm along the back of Sunnie’s chair and stroked her arm. “Where do you think families come from?”
Megan pushed the record button. “Today we celebrate Dark Hope’s thirtieth anniversary, what were your roles in the beginning?”
“I was recovering from anthrax, and he was my guard.” He still watched over her, still spent as much time with her as his job allowed. And after all this time, they still hadn’t run out of things to say.
Robertson shook his head. “I planned to marry her when I first heard the Doc had a niece. All it took was a little maneuvering on my part and I was assigned guard duty. Naturally, she fell in love with me.”
Sunnie rolled her eyes. There wasn’t any naturally about it. Sure, she fell in love with him, but he didn’t win her that easily. Even after that first heated kiss when he came back from certain death, he’
d had to chase her for another four years. Actually, he still had to chase her. She liked it. “Our first job in Dark Hope was cleaning up after the animals—shoveling poo. It wasn’t very glamorous.”
“Then how did you become Chief of Security, Mr. Robertson?”
Robertson switched from teasing to professional. “I was a soldier and investigated suspicious deaths during the Redaction. The Sergeant-Major mentored me and I was fortunate enough to take his place when he retired.”
“Sergeant-Major?”
“Chief Dawson. He was my NCO during the Redaction. We were one of the few units to make it here intact. Not that we didn’t have our losses.”
Sunnie patted his hand. Ray and Michaelson were still around, still showed up on Tuesday nights for poker. Vegas had died five years ago from leukemia and Johnson had headed to Montana when the folks up there lost their only doctor. “I was just the Doc’s niece. I’d finished one semester of online college so I wasn’t really much use except in sanitation.”
“How did you get into journalism?”
“Professor Buchanan wanted to film modules on what was going on around us and I was editing the videos. After the first one aired, the whole morale of the mines changed. That’s when I discovered the power of journalism. Fear withers in the face of knowledge. You’re doing an important job, Megan.”
“Except when you’re harassing one of my best investigators.” Robertson winked at Sunnie. “When are you gonna marry Buchanan anyway?
Megan blushed. “Um, what do you think of the new monument?”
Sunnie shrugged. “I think it’s completely appropriate. If we didn’t all pull together, none of us would be here.”
Robertson squeezed her hand. “And in it, I’m standing beside Sunnie forever. Just like I promised.”
David and Mavis
David wrapped his good arm around Mavis. His wife smiled up at him. Wife. Of all the things that she’d been called in the last three decades, that’s the one he liked best. “Last chance to run.”
“Don’t even think about it.” Megan turned around and faced them. “Get your butts in the chairs.”
“Where’d you learn to be so bossy?” Mavis rolled her eyes but shuffled to the chair. No one moved very fast once they hit seventy. “Don’t you know who we are?”
“I know exactly who you are.” Megan pushed strands of hair behind her ear. “And you’re the last to be interviewed. I thought you’d have loads of free time once you retired.”
David snorted. She was a fine one to talk. They barely saw the girl at all. He’d gone nearly a week without once asking about when she’d give him grandchildren. “We didn’t know when we retired we’d become icons.”
“Icons have lots of demands on their time.” Mavis lowered herself to the molded plastic chair. She frowned at him and wiggled to find a comfortable spot. Good luck with that. He’d made his prisoners sit in these suckers. After an hour of having their butt be asleep, the criminals were happy to confess.
“Perhaps, we should have requested cushioned chairs.”
Sunnie hit the record button. “Tell me about Dark Hope.”
God, she was so much like her mother—sitting there all prim and proper, trying to make the world conform to her logic. David pointed out the glass with his stump. He’d lost half an arm to bone cancer ten years ago. Thankfully when it had come back last year, the treatments had involved less drastic measures. “It’s right there through the window.”
“Dad, this is supposed to be serious.” Megan rolled her eyes. “How did you come to pick it as the place to start over?”
Mavis smoothed her jacket. “I had a limited time to start sending supplies to our fall back point and Charles Lister recommended Dark Hope. We named your brother after the general.”
“That’s why we call him Charlie.” David had kept his promise to the old man, but he wasn’t about to let him win. Charles Dawson was David’s son. Even if he did have Mavis’s mind and looks, he had his father’s talents too. That boy could shoot the eyes off a fly.
Megan frowned. Apparently, she wasn’t getting the answers she wanted. Too bad. She was getting the truth.
They’d raised her to value the truth. And together they’d done a mighty fine job, if he did say so himself. Of course, Mavis had taken over most of it once she’d left office to teach at the new university.
“So it was just dumb luck that we ended up here?”
Mavis smiled. “I think it was serendipity. Those were dark times. But hope was there like a star in the night sky. Although we couldn’t touch it or reach it, it guided us on the journey back to civilization.”
Well said. David kissed his wife’s hand. But then her ability to see through the bullshit and cut to the heart of the matter was just one of the reasons that he loved her. “It’s been a hell of a journey.”
A special thank you for following the journey as well. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. In the spring, I plan to release one more Redaction book that will be set 100 years in the future. What did happen to Gavin and all those folks who took their chances outside of the mines. To get a sneak peak, check out my blog starting in March when I’ll be posting new chapters http://lindaandrews.wordpress.com. And as always, I very much enjoy hearing from you so please drop me an email at linda (dot) lindaandrews (at) gmail (dot) com, write a review, find me one facebook or send me a tweet.
Author’s Note
Once again, I found myself quoting famous speeches. Tucked in the middle was an excerpt of the amazing Sir Winston Churchhill’s ‘On The Beaches’ speech and at the end was the Gettysburg Address. I’m not sure whether to be proud or scared that so often in recent human history have we needed stalwart leaders to shine a beacon of hope in dark and bloody times.
Contents
Title page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Thirty Years Later
Papa Rose
Author’s Note
Table of Contents
Title page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
&nbs
p; Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Redaction: Dark Hope Part III Page 33