Kate stood to walk over by her books and said “These are all my signed copies. No way was I leaving them in some storage locker while I was up here. I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night!” Kate reached her hand up and brushed her fingers against her treasures. Many were decades old.
“That makes sense,” Jeep replied, while fingering one of the spines of a larger hardback book. “Why do you have a whole book about sheep?”
She laughed outright at that. “Actually, I brought two copies of that. The other is in the library that’s in the rear of the facility, the backup area. Anyway, you should read it…and it’s not about sheep at all, or knitting for that matter. The one I put in the backup library isn’t signed; you can borrow that one. These signed copies are not for loaning.” She slowly moved his fingers off the spine of the gem of her signed collection and eyed him suspiciously.
“Hmmm, maybe I will borrow it, but you need to relax. I’ll stop touching your books. But, look, my hands aren’t even greasy!” He smiled wide as he held his hands up for her to see and flipped them back and forth to show how clean they were. Finally, he put his hands down and looked her in the eyes. “I was about to go outside for a bit. It’s a really nice day - want to get some fresh air?”
+++
As they walked out onto the back porch, Kate could see that the weather was truly gorgeous. The skies had that deep bluebird color that seemed more common in the north. They crossed the corner of the runway and quickly made it to the row of trees lining the river’s edge.
“So, you liking the place, Doc?” Jeep said as he stared out over the water.
“Yes, it’s certainly the most interesting job I’ve ever had.” Kate paused, wondering how to phrase her next thought and then finally just blurted out, “I honestly thought you all would be less adjusted to this lifestyle.” She immediately regretted her phrasing and wondered how Jeep seemed to make her so relaxed.
“That’s pretty good! You’re wondering why we’re not more crazy, is that it?” Jeep leaned down to pick up a handful of rocks along the edge.
“Crazy isn’t a word my profession generally uses, but I did expect more issues among the staff.”
Jeep began hurling the small rocks way out into the river and watching them break the surface with a satisfying ‘ker-ploonk’. “Listen Doc, I’ve worked in many different environments with lots of people where the crazy runs rampant. The situation here is different.” Jeep handed her a rock to throw and she snatched it out of his hand without hesitation. “People are allowed to pursue their own interests, for the most part, as long as the few official tasks get accomplished.” He chucked another small stone out over the river. “Mostly, we feel kind of like place holders. Like, this isn’t a real job, so why stress about it? The money’s good and you can’t beat the location.”
Kate cocked her arm back and let the rock fly freely over the river. Jeep’s eyes widened as he watched it soar past his farthest toss. She made it look easy. Turning her head toward Jeep, who had begun stammering slightly, she said, “It’s all technique. You’re trying to force the rock to go farther with muscle, but that never works.”
As Jeep began to ask her a question, a very loud alarm rang out all over the valley. Kate began looking around because it almost sounded like one of the old air-raid sirens she had learned about in school. Suddenly she felt a tugging at her arm.
“We need to get back now!” Jeep was nearly pulling her through the thin line of trees. “That sound means they have changed the DEFCON level to 2, maybe even 1. We’ll be locked out of the vault if we don’t get back right now!”
Kate had so many questions, but adrenaline took over and she began running. Jeep quickly caught up to her. For a large man, he had serious speed. The terrain was rough as close to the river as they were and she nearly tripped a handful of times, but Jeep was always right there to catch her and urge her on. Finally, they crossed over onto the runway and the sirens grew louder. Kate could see the lights above the back door were on strobe. Her heart was beating so fast in her chest she was having a hard time breathing. She was in better shape than this, but the flashing lights and blaring noise seemed to be trying to call forth a panic attack. She squashed those feelings as far down as she could, knowing this was not the time to break down.
The door snapped open as they approached and the pair barreled through it. Kate slowed down to try to catch her breath, but Jeep grabbed her arm again and tugged her further. “No, we can’t stop here. The entire back section is outside the vaults main lockdown area. We need to get through the blast doors into the central area or we’ll be stuck out here. We’re not safe out here,” Jeep huffed out between gasps for breath.
Soon, their feet were pounding the hard floors of the hallway as they headed as fast as they could towards the main doors. Kate saw the light change in the hallway from orange to red and knew that was a bad sign. Her whole face was covered in sweat now, and some of it had dripped into her eyes, causing them to sting and distort her vision slightly. She reached down deep and pulled out every last bit of energy she had to hustle the final 100 feet through the door. Jeep was keeping pace with her, but a quick sideways glance at his face revealed to Kate that he wasn’t sure they were going to make it.
They rounded the small corner nearest the door and Jeep tossed her through first and then propelled himself like a missile through the doorway. The heavy blast door, that Kate had never seen, slammed closed as he was in mid-air. Kate frantically grabbed for Jeep, fearing his legs, or at least his feet, had been crushed.
He looked up at her with that cocky, southern grin while breathing heavy and said “Well, I believe that’s all the exercise I need for the day.”
Kate was also trying to gulp air in quantities far too large for her lungs, but was relieved to see both of Jeep’s boot covered feet intact and attached to his oversized ankles. They both lay there, panting and sweating for quite some time, before Kate was able to speak again.
“What the hell just happened?!? I didn’t even know those huge doors were in there!” she said as she slowly sat up and rested her back against the cold steel wall while her legs sprawled out in front of her.
Jeep rolled over, his face still beet red. Kate was starting to get a little worried before he finally composed himself and sat up as well. “Something really bad must have happened to drop the DEFCON level to lockout range. We need to go find out what’s going on.” Jeep was still breathing hard as he lay against the wall. “Just give me another second to catch my breath. I haven’t run like that in a while. I’m more of an easy stroll kind of guy. I’m not built to run.”
Kate smiled and toed him in the leg, “You’re actually much faster than I would have guessed. Good work!” Kate’s own breathing had come back into normal range, although her heart was still pounding in her ears as her body worked through the surge of excitement it had been unexpectedly given.
“Yeah, well, adrenaline does crazy stuff. Plus, this body isn’t just hot to look at, you know, it can do its job.” Jeep’s grin curved wickedly across his face as the redness slowly bled away and remained only in his cheeks.
Kate began to wonder what Jeep looked like without most of his face covered by that thick black beard. “I apologize to both of you. My systems were overridden and I couldn’t hold that door open any longer. I was powerless and forced to watch you make your way here. I was worried you weren’t going to make it!”
Kate had grown very accustomed to the computer’s voice popping up all the time, so she wasn’t surprised to hear it chime in now. “I wasn’t aware you could be overridden,” Kate said.
“Nothing should ever be given total control over a facility like this.” Shunka responded in a very rational, even tone.
“Except for whoever was in charge of the override, I suppose,” muttered Kate.
“What was that, Kate? I’m afraid my microphones are being washed out by all the ambient alarms and chimes.”
“It doesn’t matter,” replied Kate.
Looking over to Jeep, she saw his skin was back to his normal coloration, and he wasn’t breathing hard anymore. “You ready to go find out what the hell is going on?”
Jeep nodded and slowly stood up. Wherever the answers were, that was where all the people had gone. Looking around at the far end of the vault’s back hallway, she knew there were no answers to be had here. The pair began walking towards the central conference room, curious, but a little frightened to find out what may have tripped such an alarm.
8
Laurel was pacing around the outskirts of the gathering of people, her long white lab coat billowing out around her, worrying about her friends. Shunka had already said they were on their way; it’s why the general was waiting on them, but she was still worried that something bad had happened.
Finally, she saw them coming around the corner. They slowed as they saw the large gathering of people, but Laurel waved to get them to hurry up. Once they got to her side she gave each of their shoulders a quick squeeze. She wanted to know what took them so long, but there was no time. She knew she would hear about what happened to Kate soon enough, so she turned all her attention to the general.
Seeing that everyone was now there, the older man in the buzz cut bellowed out, “I will need to hear why both of you are just now getting here, but we can do that later.” He stood up a little straighter and cleared his throat loudly. “Now, we have had a situation occur today that marks a turning point. The United States has been fired upon with nuclear missiles.” A loud gasp spread throughout the crowd and the murmuring between everyone increased dramatically.
“Listen up, people.” The general was clearly growing agitated with the staff. “The attack was thwarted using part of our missile defense system. Unfortunately, the space based shield failed, we had to revert back to the old ground based laser array and bounce the beam off the reflector satellite.”
Laurel leaned over to Kate and Jeep, “Those are real? I thought it was just from that old movie.”
Kate whispered in reply, “Won’t you gentlemen have a Pepsi,” and then giggled at her own joke.
Jeep couldn’t contain himself at the quote from the movie and let out a muffled chuckle that mostly came out his nose.
“Hey, I need everyone’s attention up here.” The general had used up all the patience he had. “We have gone to ‘Defense Condition 1’, which is what triggered the lockdown of the facility. That is our most heightened level of preparedness. DEFCON 1 means that nuclear war is imminent. We have already launched a counterstrike against Unified Korea, which is where the attack came from.”
Laurel gasped so loudly at this that it led to a small coughing fit. It had happened, an all-out nuclear war. She had heard the grumblings around the site, same as everyone else, that the entire world was on edge. Even though they were cut off from much of the goings on in the outside world, they still had email and could watch the news. Laurel had hoped it would never come to this. Some actions can never be taken back.
“I have heard from the Joint Chiefs, and the decision to reciprocate in kind was not an easy one, but it had to be done. We sent three bombs at them while theirs were still in the air.” The general’s steely gaze faltered for just a moment and said, “They were unable to shoot them down. For all intents and purposes, Unified Korea no longer exists.”
Laurel looked around the crowd and could see most of the faces had blanched. There was no more chattering between people, no more excited looks to find out what had happened. This was a dark day.
“Hopefully, our actions today will show our enemies that we will not be trifled with. What was done was done to save millions of lives.” His voice cracked as he spoke. “Our readiness at this site has not changed. We continue on as normal. NORAD Command inside Cheyenne Mountain controls the DEFCON system, and once we drop to a level of two, access and functionality of the site will go back to normal. Until then, it is physically impossible to leave the central compound.” Murmurs again swept through the crowd. “I don’t expect this to last more than several days.
Laurel leaned over to Kate and whispered, “I think you’re going to have a lot more business in the coming days.”
Kate simply nodded as she looked out over the crowd to see all the confused and scared faces. “I think you’re right.”
+++
In the days after the nuclear event, much at the site had changed. The lockdown had ended, but now they had new rules for leaving the facility. Kate and Jeep had explained to the general what had happened, and he had wanted to simply seal off the outside to anything but emergency work. Kate had convinced him otherwise.
It wasn’t easy. She had to explain that with the heightened fear, locking everyone inside would only exacerbate the problem. The general had instead compromised. Kate hadn’t thought that U.S. Army Generals were very big on compromise, but General Bahn was very different than she expected.
People were still allowed to go outside, but they just had more distinct boundaries now. The staff had set up lines demarcating the distance from the vault’s back door. This served to limit how far they could go and hopefully, in the event of another lockdown, anyone caught outside would not have to run for their lives, as Kate and Jeep had.
Kate sat in her office waiting for her next patient. She assumed it would be someone with nearly crushing anxiety issues. The fear that now permeated the staff was palpable, and Kate was going through meds like there was no tomorrow. It appeared that the scare had shocked everyone to the stark realization of where they were, or rather, what this site was actually built for.
Everyone seemed to understand that the vault was safe. A warhead could conceivably hit the mountainside and it would merely shake the facility. No, it didn’t seem to be fear for their own lives that Kate was seeing in the vast majority of people. It was fear for a rapidly changing world, a world they would probably never see again in the state that they remembered it. Thankfully, most of the folks stationed at the seed vault had very little, if any, family.
Kate was holding herself together well, and she hoped much of these fears would pass. She had never been very close to her parents after college, but she loved them and worried about them. After the divorce, she discovered most of her ‘friends’ were actually her ex-husbands friends. It was part of the reason she had taken this position in remote Montana. She had wanted a fresh start to life. Still, she hoped everyone she knew back in Phoenix was doing okay. Panic in massively dense urban areas tended to lead to rioting and a general breakdown in society. She was waiting for the news reports of riots and demonstrations to come rolling in. Kate also knew that with Phoenix being the fourth largest city in the nation, it was surely near the top of a target list for nuclear attack locations.
The general seemed to be correct that the annihilation of Unified Korea would stop more coordinated attacks. What she feared, though, were the terrorist style attacks. She knew that many nations and groups who were on the fence about the evil inherent in the US would be steeled in their resolve against it now.
Many of the rest of the less developed countries simply didn’t believe that Unified Korea had launched against the U.S. They all assumed it was a pre-emptive attack, and the US just created the story of their launch in order to defend their aggressive actions. Due to this, Kate was certain that the terrorist groups would be ramping up their plans. General Bahn had begun limiting the amount of time people could spend watching the news as it was beginning to seriously affect everyone’s work. She had heard that he planned to remove outside communication and media reports overall until things calmed down. Kate knew that was for the best since people tended to dwell on situations like this one until it became a compulsion.
As the days went on, nothing happened. At least, nothing that Kate or the rest of the staff heard about. Laurel was keeping herself nearly locked in her lab. The few times they had spoken, she mentioned she was on the verge of a breakthrough in her virus research. Laurel had referred to it as the ‘Ice Virus’, but had not h
ad the time to explain why.
Another dozen military men had arrived at the base. They were mostly Marines, and Kate had been told that they were exempt from the mandatory sessions with her. They were free to come and talk to her, of course, but they were not required to like the rest of the staff.
Kate had been very disappointed that they had cancelled the next in-depth survival class. It was supposed to be titled ‘Making Fire Anywhere With Anything’ and she had been looking forward to it. Small price to pay, she assumed. Instead, she flipped to the fire making sections of her survival books, absorbing as much information as she could.
The biggest thing that she had been taught when the alarms first rang while she was outside was that she just might need some of those survival skills. Had Jeep not been there with her, she never would have nearly killed herself trying to get back inside, and would surely have been locked out. It would only have lasted for several days, but still, she didn’t feel prepared for that.
Kate was imagining that learning all these survival skills might just be her own style of therapy. She brushed the hair out of her eyes as she read about how to make a bow drill out of some sticks and your shoelaces. She knew that all she was learning was book knowledge and she needed to test it outside under actual conditions. Things usually worked nicely on paper, but applying them to actual situations tended to be a different story.
She made a mental note to see if Marcus would want to take a walk outside when he came in for his session later today. The big man usually loved going outside, and he had been here long enough to go through many of the practical skills classes. She knew that, as long as he had paid attention, he should know exactly how to do all this stuff.
As she put the book back on her shelf, Bender nuzzled against her leg. The dog had apparently been very shaken when the alarms went off and had hid for several days. Many people had thought he had run away somehow, gotten outside and then just never came back. Since none of the monitors near the doors showed him leaving, the computer knew he was still inside the facility. It actually seemed to have fun looking for him. In order to find him, Shunka had to do an entire scan of the facility. He had turned up in an unused air vent, curled into a tight ball and severely dehydrated.
Finding Their Path Page 5