“Knock yourself out, little brother,” Andrews said. “We’re not going anywhere soon.”
“SCEV Four, Bay Control,” a voice said over the radio. “Stand by for external decon. Over.”
“Light us up, Bay Control. Over. Spencer, any reason we can’t start the recovery checklist, or is there something else you need to do?”
“Negative, I’m good. Let’s get on the checklists.” Spencer retreated to his station as the strobe lights outside turned from yellow to red. Several robotic arms descended from the decon center’s ceiling, each equipped with a large nozzle. The SCEV crew began their arrival checklists, and the arms sprayed the vehicle with thick streams of detergent-laden water. They weaved about the rig in a complex pattern, hitting it from every angle and blasting away the hazardous dirt and grime the vehicle had accumulated during its run. As Choi read off the checklist items and Spencer verified settings and switch positions, Andrews looked out the viewports, watching as filthy water cascaded down the rig’s sloped nose. SCEV Four was being sprayed with more water than it had encountered in over a month of field time. The thought depressed him. In fact, the entire act of returning to Harmony empty-handed left him feeling hollow. Everyone in the base had been counting on them to return with some good news, with reports that, over a decade after the Sixty Minute War, humanity was flourishing somewhere in what had once been the United States of America. Failing that, people wanted some evidence that Harmony Base wasn’t humanity’s last outpost.
Andrews hated to be the one to disappoint them.
“Yo, Captain, you with me?” Choi asked.
Andrews looked up, surprised to discover he’d zoned out during the checklist procedure. “What?”
“I said, ‘secondary generator switch to standby position.’ I can see it is, but you know, you have to respond.”
Andrews sighed and checked the switch both visually and by touch. “In standby.” His voice sounded tired even to his own ears.
2
Major General Martin Benchley sat behind his desk and paged through the series of consumption reports on his tablet, reading them without even really seeing them. After years of doing so, he knew what the base’s usual rhythms were, what readings were wrong, and what consumables were being wasted. It was not unusual for him to operate on autopilot. But when he realized he’d scrolled through to the end of the document without retaining anything, he knew he would be revisiting the data once again. Benchley sighed and rubbed his eyes. Other senior officers might have been content to review the executive summary and sign off but, as the commanding general of Harmony Base, he didn’t have that luxury. If something went wrong or if some vital resource was being squandered, he was the last line of defense. His position mandated that he always remain vigilant—no matter what.
He regarded the array of flat-screen displays that adorned the wall opposite his desk. He could view any common area inside the base from his office, everything from the engineering spaces to the dining facilities to the corridor outside. He had watched the arrival of SCEV Four on one of those very monitors. The dusty rig had made a gutsy run for the elevator despite a last-second mechanical glitch, even though procedure mandated they shut down and wait out the deadly tempest before trying to gain entry to the base. He’d already heard from Colonel Walters, the eternally dissatisfied head of the vehicle maintenance area, who’d ranted for some time about the fact that Andrews was obviously disregarding procedure and putting his crew and their precious, thirty-seven-million-dollar Self-Contained Exploration Vehicle at extreme risk. Benchley shut Walters down as gently as he could. While he was essentially correct—Benchley himself had mandated that procedures be followed to the letter, as they might be the only thing standing between life and certain death—the fact of the matter was, the general was eager to get his hands on the SCEV team’s report. They had concluded the first long-range reconnaissance survey of the central United States since the Sixty Minute War, and Benchley was not alone in wanting to discover what they had learned.
The base was the last remaining holdover from the old Cold War. Originally initiated during the Reagan Administration, Harmony had been designed to restore the United States after a possible thermonuclear conflict with the Soviet Union. Full of seed stocks, cryogenically suspended animal embryos, staffed with brilliant scientists, engineers, and competent military tradesmen, tacticians, and troops, the subterranean outpost had been designed to be self-sufficient for fifty years. The place was one of the very largest hardened sites ever created. There was enough room for almost a thousand people. Its warehouses were stuffed full of everything that might be needed: freeze-dried and vacuum-sealed foods, petroleum products that had been treated with long-term stabilizers to ensure their combustibility, thousands of books in both paper and electronic formats, tools, building materials, even precious stones and gold, should those become necessary to whatever post-apocalypse society might spread after the bombs dropped. No stone had been left unturned.
Harmony had fared well, even during the tightest budget periods, when political administrations had been tempted to suspend money for the long-running budget. The base had always had a surfeit of hardcore proponents—in the halls of Congress, the military, and the private sector—to ensure its survival. But the base’s most surprising benefactors turned out to be the terrorists behind September 11, 2001. They had helped renew interest in the multi-billion-dollar installation during a time when America was more interested in the peace dividend caused by the dissolution of the old Soviet Union. The attacks on American soil had galvanized those holding the black project’s purse strings into action, and the money had started to flow once again. Harmony was retrofitted and restocked with the latest technologies, a trend that continued and even accelerated once the diseased Russian Federation finally died, and the progeny of the old authoritarian Communists rose again. The cycle began anew, the United States of America once again faced a monolithic threat.
When the war finally came, it punished not just America, but the entire globe. The event began without warning, as far as Benchley could tell. One moment, he was contemplating his upcoming retirement, the next, he was ordered to seal the base as the missiles tracked across the sky. As mushroom clouds bloomed across the planet, Harmony was finally good to go on its mission.
For the past six months, the SCEVs had been setting off into the field, conducting their surveys. After a decade of isolation, it was time for Harmony Base to enact the second part of its charter: Quando mundum finit opus nos incipiet.
When the world ends, our mission begins.
What Benchley and everyone in Harmony Base wanted to know: Are we alone? Are we all that’s left? That was all they cared about now, after almost a decade of isolation, biding their time beneath the Earth’s surface and—
A chime sounded, and Benchley looked up at the bank of monitors again. Four hours after SCEV Four’s arrival, Captain Mike Andrews stood in the corridor outside, flanked by two enlisted MPs. As he watched, a crowd of passersby tried to extend their congratulations to Andrews, so many that the big MPs stood no chance of holding them back. Andrews appeared to accept the attention as stoically as he could. Benchley noted the slump to the younger man’s shoulders and the drawn, almost pained expression on his face when he acknowledged the presumably good tidings extended by the others. Benchley wondered if Andrews’s expression held all the answers he would ever need.
He feared exactly that.
Benchley rose and walked to the office door, his powerful stride belying his sixty-six years. He had been ready for retirement before the Sixty Minute War, with only two weeks left on post before rotating out and ending his service with the United States Army. Of course, the launch of several nuclear weapons against the US had put his retirement plans on hold—forever. He opened the metal door and it slid inward on well-oiled hinges. Benchley had no secretary. She’d been on leave before the war struck, and he hadn’t seen any reason to replace her. He crossed the small outer office,
opened the door to the corridor, and waved inside the three men waiting in the hall.
“Come in, Andrews. You men mind waiting in the outer office while I debrief the captain?” The two MPs shook their heads in unison.
“No, sir,” the senior man said.
“Thank you. Go ahead and make yourselves comfortable.” Benchley ran a hand over his close-cropped silver hair and motioned to his office. “In there if you will, Captain.”
“Yes, sir,” Andrews said. He carried a small nylon bag with him as he stepped into the office. Benchley followed him in and shut the door.
“Have a seat, son. Good to see you home safe and sound. Looks like Mother Nature threw you a last-minute monkey wrench, eh?”
“Yes, sir.” Andrews settled into one of the visitor’s chairs facing Benchley’s desk only after the general had set himself. “But that’s what happens when you try to keep a schedule.”
“Indeed. All right, we’ll keep this short. I know you’ve been away for quite some time, and you’re probably eager to get back to life.”
Andrews opened the nylon bag and pulled out a binder and two thumb drives. He handed the items over to Benchley, who placed the electronic devices on his desk. He opened the binder, which was Andrews’s written log of SCEV Four’s sojourn through the wasteland. The logs kept by every SCEV commander constituted the sole remaining paper in Harmony Base. Benchley flipped through it quickly, scanning the neat print.
“It’s all collated, sir. Lieutenant Eklund’s analyses are complete, and Engineer Spencer will have the—”
“Let’s cut to the chase, Andrews. What did you find?”
Andrews hesitated for a long moment, then released a heavy sigh. “I’m sorry, sir. The mission was a wash.”
Even though he had been ready to hear it—or thought he had—the news hit Benchley like a physical blow. He sagged back into his chair and looked across the desk at Andrews. For his part, the young captain returned his gaze with forlorn eyes.
“That’s … damned disappointing, Andrews. I’d hoped a long-range recon would turn something up. We can’t be the only survivors of the war …”
“And we probably aren’t, sir. We’ve just been looking in the wrong places.” Andrews appeared more animated now, shrugging off the depressing reality of his report in a way that only the young could. “The Pacific Northwest is our best bet. Everywhere from Los Angeles to New York was hit with at least one nuclear device during the war, and anything that wasn’t was covered by the fallout. The winds are still hot outside, even ten years later—the only place anyone could possibly survive outside of hardened bunkers would be in the Northwest. You give the word, sir, and I’ll have my rig ready to roll in three days.”
Benchley smiled despite himself. Andrews was a true go-getter, perhaps the one SCEV commander he trusted above all others. He was thorough, meticulous, and smart enough to know when to flex the rules a little bit to get something done. Best of all, he was a keen motivator, a trait that years of being trapped underground, slaves to repetition and outright boredom, had almost been eliminated in the Harmony Base culture. Andrews still had it, however, carrying his enthusiasm like a badge. Even though he had little but bad news to report, the young officer was rallying himself to charge out into the field and try again. In the process, Benchley noticed his own sagging spirits being lifted by Andrews.
Thank God for this boy, and all the others like him.
“I appreciate your can-do attitude, Andrews. Really. I’ll give your request full consideration, but my instinct is to stick to the schedule for now. In the meantime, myself and the rest of the command staff will go over your findings. Expect to be fully debriefed on Friday, which should give you enough time to get your personal affairs in order.”
Andrews looked disappointed. “Your call, sir. But we’re ready to jump out on this one. I mean, we’re really ready and—”
Benchley held up a hand. “I get it, Mike. I get it. I have to consult with the rest of the command staff before I make any sweeping changes to the recon schedule, and you know that. I really will consider making the change, but I need to discuss it with the rest of the team. Trust me on this one, okay?”
Andrews smiled wryly. “Trust has never been a problem here, sir. But if you don’t mind me saying so, you might be acting a little too … conservatively about this.”
“Me? Conservative? Bite your tongue, Captain—I’m practically a flaming liberal regarding issues like this.” Benchley rose to his feet and smoothed out the blouse of his Army Combat Uniform, the standard duty dress in Harmony Base. Andrews practically rocketed upright, instantly standing at attention.
“Anyway, congratulations, Captain. After thirty-three days in the field, I can absolutely and without reservation confirm that you and your crew have done well. Now go home. You look like hell.”
Andrews saluted. Benchley returned the gesture, then held out his hand. Andrews took it, his grip firm. The grip of an adventurer, Benchley thought. If there was a post-apocalyptic Lewis and Clark, Cook, Perry, or even James T. Kirk, Mike Andrews was that man.
“Thanks, sir. Let me know if there’s anything in the log that needs clarification,” Andrews said.
“Of course. Now get out of here,” Benchley said. “You have a young wife to see.” He hoped his smile didn’t reflect the heaviness he felt in his heart. If Andrews noticed, it didn’t show. In fact, the reference to his wife seemed to rejuvenate him. To Benchley, it appeared Andrews couldn’t get out of his office quickly enough. The captain stepped out of the office and allowed the heavy door to clang shut behind him, and Benchley slowly sank back into his chair. He put a hand on the logbook before him, palm down, as if he could somehow distill all the disappointment and thrashed dreams without having to actually wade through the reports.
He shook his head slowly. There was nothing to be gained by putting off the bad news.
****
The lights inside Andrews’s quarters were off, masking the small dwelling in the pervasive, all-encompassing darkness found only deep underground. He slowly closed the door behind him, latching it quietly.
“Command: lights, twenty percent,” he said. Though his voice was as soft and quiet as he could make it, it still sounded harsh and loud inside the apartment’s stillness. The AI executed his command, and the overhead lights slowly brightened until the small living room was bathed in a pale amber glow. For a moment, Andrews just stood in place, looking around the small apartment. Though it was tiny, it was practically a palace compared to an SCEV, and he luxuriated in the surfeit of open space. He stepped around the decidedly no-frills couch to the kitchenette and tugged open the door of the small refrigerator. He smiled when he saw four bottles inside. Rachel had managed to score them from one of Harmony’s brewmasters, another engineer who worked in the Core. She probably had to work double shifts for a week to pay for the veritable liquid gold, but that was the kind of woman she was. The end of the world had ensured that there would never be such as thing as a free beer, which meant she would have to pay for the goods with labor. Andrews ran a hand through his dark blond hair and considered the bottles greedily. He desperately wanted one right now, but there was a time for everything. Though it took a surprising amount of self-control, Andrews refrained.
Instead, he headed for the small partition on the far side of the apartment, the bedroom, which occupied a space less than six feet wide by eight feet deep. Andrews stopped at the bedroom’s narrow entrance and listened. The AI had left the lights switched off here, and in the pitch-black darkness that dominated the tiny bedroom, he heard Rachel breathing. Slow, even, and deep. He stood still and waited for his eyes to adjust. After a time he could make out her slumbering figure, barely a silhouette beneath the linens. He continued to watch her sleep, her face turned away from him, her dark hair spilling across the pillow like a waterfall of shadow. Her work uniform lay in a crumpled heap at the foot of the bed, and he bent over and picked it up. Smoothing out a few wrinkles, he opened t
he microscopic closet set into the wall and hung the single-piece uniform on a hanger. He did the same with his own duty uniform, then carefully crawled into bed and stretched out beside his wife. Despite his best efforts, she stirred; after all, who wouldn’t if they felt someone slinking into their bed when their husband was away?
“Mike?” she asked, voice blurry from what Andrews guessed was too much work and too little sleep. Before he could say anything, Rachel bolted upright in the bed with a gasp, reaching for him with one hand. She felt his face in the darkness, and he kissed her fingertips.
“Miss me?”
“Mike! Oh, God—” Her embrace almost crushed the breath from him, and Andrews laughed at the ferocity of it. Thirty-three days was a long time for a man to be away from his wife, and it was good to see she felt the same way.
“Easy there. Don’t break the merchandise, hon.”
“I’m so sorry!” There was genuine regret in her voice, which puzzled Andrews.
“It’s no big deal.”
She laughed and pulled away from him long enough to take his face in her hands. “No, no … not about that. I’m sorry I didn’t meet you at Receiving. I must have slept through the pages. I worked the overnight shift as well as the morning shift, and I just stretched out for a quick nap, but—”
Andrews put a finger to her lips. “Rachel, it’s no big deal. So I had to walk another couple of hundred feet to see you. Not a problem. Really.” He kissed her gently. “Anyway. Did you miss me, or is there something else we need to talk about?”
“I don’t want to talk,” Rachel said, pulling him close. She wrapped her legs around him and gripped his shoulders with an intent that Andrews was well familiar with.
3
The command center of Harmony Base was a high-tech affair, a dimly lit room populated by workstations and displays of all sizes and brightness. From here, the personnel on duty monitored the condition of the subterranean installation, home to almost a thousand people. All internal metrics were captured and stored and, if necessary, reviewed. It was mostly mind-numbingly boring work, a repetitive process of staring at screens, monitoring the internal affairs of Harmony Base, and keeping the occasional eye turned toward the happenings on the surface over a hundred feet above their heads. But studying the surface was even more boring. Ever since the Sixty Minute War had essentially eradicated the ozone layer, solar radiation continued to bombard the planet, causing the Earth’s surface to waste away even further. Beyond dusty rock and parched earth, there was almost nothing left outside to see. Not even a cockroach remained alive out there, so it was a rare circumstance for something outside to merit any discussion beyond Hey, look at how big that dust storm is, or Well, it might not look like Kansas … but it still is.
This Is the End: The Post-Apocalyptic Box Set (7 Book Collection) Page 47