by Lea Tassie
Friends greeted each other and spoke to the pastor but, in time, the building emptied as all returned to their daily lives.
That afternoon, Joshua was surfing the data stream from his work computer when he stumbled upon an old archived video from the turn of the millennium. The subject was a subterranean fort for the homeowner. This fallout shelter was guaranteed to keep one's family safe from an atomic bomb threat.
Joshua spent the rest of the evening researching this fort and the role it played in human history. By morning, he had decided that he wanted a bunker like this built in his back yard for his family. It would also be good for research for his history class.
It took several weeks of communication with various companies around the world, which at first had no idea what he was after. Finally, he stumbled on a nanobot program under development at one of the universities. They were studying the effects of AutoCAD creations built by micro robots in the development of sustainable structures, some very advanced technologies, and the durability of such creations. Put into the simplest terms, thousands of very small robots were programmed to build a three-dimensional structure, of a specific size and shape, in the ground, using only the minerals found in the soils into which they had been injected.
Joshua thought that would be perfect. He'd allow the scientists to test their invention in his back yard, and build a fallout shelter that he could then show to history students as a prime example of how America's forefathers lived.
For almost a year the diligent little robots hummed away in his back yard building a sizable bunker. Often Joshua would make a digital recording of the construction zone and the small robots at work to show to his history students. He wanted the bunker to be authentic for the period and as a result, was also determined to find and install furniture and fittings from that time.
Debbie watched her husband's obsession blossom. She was impressed with the level of detail Joshua managed to achieve in the reconstruction. Chairs, beds, and bathrooms of the period were installed in the bunker and the colorful flags of Germany and America hung from the walls. But the most impressive thing, by far, was the track armored personnel carrier that sat poised for duty just inside the main door of the subterranean structure. The structure had taken only a little less time to build than it took to find, build and then install the carrier, complete with several gallons of working diesel.
The town was abuzz with this reconstruction, and kids from the history class begged their fathers for just such a thing to be built in their own back yards. During the year of development, the old pastor even asked Joshua to come up to the church's podium and give a talk regarding the bunker and the lives of the ancestors who had lived during this period. Joshua went into some detail of the strong family values of these forgotten pioneers, and how wholesome and pure, with a strong father figure leading, these ancient Germans and Americans were.
Sadly, the world had rejected, even then, the word of God and, as a result, only these good ancestors with their bunkers and faith managed to survive, to once again rise into the sunlight and sing the praises of a merciful God. Following the story of Noah, the bunker became known as a modern day Ark, where the children of God could hide and pray until His mighty wrath had subsided. Joshua's history talks became very popular events at church. However, as time passed, the topic became stale.
Three years had passed when the heathens to the east once again called down upon the peoples of Earth the wrath of God, this time in the form of the Grays. The people of Reno were told in sermons that this time, the fools had indeed opened Pandora's Box.
"And now! Now I tell you all here! Yet again, these impure, unholy, unrighteous fools have yet again used their science to call down upon our heads the wrath of God. Brothers and sisters, pray with me, that our mighty Lord will once again find forgiveness for these blind fools," the old pastor said, with a trembling in his voice as bombs exploded not far from the church door.
When the weekly sermon was done, Joshua and Debbie, with their two sons, Jeremiah and Josephus, walked the seven miles back home. No longer were the robot transports working, or the lawn maintenance bots. The roads were littered with rubble and many homes burned and destroyed. The entire town of Reno had refused to participate in another foolish war and, as a result, received no support or defense from the rest of the country. The Grays, it was soon realized, were so superior in technology that nothing could be done to stop them, so the town felt their self-righteous stance was justified.
Joshua thought of the fleet of spaceships, which the military had proudly claimed would be able to protect Earth from any attack. Incredibly, the fleet had been vaporized in a few short weeks. That just proved, once again, that the godless politicians in New Denver were ignoring those who could deliver the truth, the word of God.
"Dear, is that the Johnson family standing at our front door?" Debbie asked.
Joshua looked up from his aching feet. "Yes, I believe you're right, as always, my love. I wonder what they want."
"I do hope it's not about that salad bowl from last year's picnic. That thing was shattered by a bomb blast weeks ago," Debbie said.
As they approached, Joshua said, "Hey, neighbor, this is an unexpected visit. How can we help you?"
Byron Johnson replied, "We got a proposition for you. Nancy and I got to thinking the other night about that fallout shelter you got out back, and, well, we were wondering if you all would like to join us living in there until this blows over. My daughter Bell here is having a real hard time sleeping at nights, what with all the goings on. We have lots of food and Nancy here loves to cook." Byron prodded his wife in the ribs.
Joshua perked up. "What a great suggestion! I didn't think anyone would be interested in that old thing." He always got excited when anyone found an artifact of history interesting. He was almost dancing with delight at the whole idea.
Not so with Debbie. But Jeremiah was enthusiastic because he liked Bell, though he didn't have the courage to tell her. Josephus wasn't keen. Bell had always been mean to him in school, and the thought of being stuck with her just seemed wrong.
"We can make it an Ark-like event, you know, the way you described in church that one time," Byron added as he rubbed his hands together.
"I like the way you think, neighbor," replied Joshua as he opened the front door to the house.
"Great, great, we'll go get our stuff and meet you all out back in say, two hours?" Byron asked.
"See you then," Joshua replied, very chipper. The family scurried about the house collecting various possessions and, two hours later, they headed out back. They were surprised at what they found when they arrived there.
"Hope you don't mind, Joshua," Byron said. "The wife was talking to the neighbors, the Bolts here, and well, one thing led to another and they asked if they could come too. Nate here is a huge sports fan."
"Well…"
Joshua was cut off by his younger son. "I think we should, Dad." Nate Bolt's daughter DeLouise was incredibly beautiful, or so Josephus thought.
Joshua and Debbie had spoken of Nate's wife, Jan, on occasion. They were uncomfortable with her, knowing that she had once been a practicing Hindu but, with his son being so insistent, Joshua said, "Sounds good, plenty of room in there for all."
From over the fence came another voice. "You all having a swank in that there bunker, neighbor?" It was Joshua's neighbor from the other side, a half-Chinese and half-British man, Mike Wang.
Joshua had never much cared for Mike. He was a bit of a braggart, but Debbie liked Mike's wife, Betty, so for her sake, Joshua kindly extended an invitation to them to join the bunker crew.
"That's mighty white of you, let me get my stuff and the missus," Mike said.
So there they were, like the twelve disciples of God, recreating the Noah's Ark experience for the night.
But God had other plans for this Night of the Black Rain.
The twelve walked down the long concrete ramp to the massive overhead door that allowed ent
rance into the underground complex. After everyone was inside, the steel door was slowly lowered to the closed position and the families began milling through the complex, staking out areas to settle in for the stay. As was typical, after the men had moved boxes and bags in, they sat in the main room to watch news reports on the monitors. The women retired to the kitchen to cook up a feast, proving that no matter how enlightened the rest of the world might be, the religious fraternity was still locked on autopilot with regard to the sexes.
"See, this is what the pastor means by idiot science," Byron said to the men as he smacked the monitor hard on its side. "These technology guys invent the damn things, and then they break down and leave us regular folks sitting in the dark." The monitor was only sporadically connecting to the data stream and, as a result, it was nearly impossible to make any sense of the news reports on the war. All they knew was that things were not looking good for the Earth forces in battle, and much ground had been lost to the Grays. The aliens seemed little interested in fighting civilians, however, and apparently only ever attacked military targets.
"Just leave the thing and let's open a couple bottles of those spirits I saw Nate bring in," Mike said smoothly, hoping he didn't sound too eager to drink the night away.
"Sounds good to me, is it good with you, Joshua?" Nate asked.
"Sure, it'll be a little while before the girls manage to get some food on the table. Besides, that should distract Byron from hitting the monitor," Joshua responded, with a laugh. Bottles were opened and drinks went around and, after some time and talk, the women put a big spread on the table. Nate was given the honor of saying evening prayers before everyone dove in.
About half way through a fine meal, there was a knocking at the big door to the bunker. Joshua rose up to answer, but Byron said, "Just leave it, we're doing the Ark thing, right? Remember, Noah heard knocks and refused to answer, so let us do that, too. Later we can explain to the person outside what we were doing."
"Sounds very exciting," Jan said. "Like being part of the bible for real for one night."
"All right," Joshua agreed as he sat back down and continued to eat. The knocking continued for some time but eventually stopped.
Everyone spent time at the table discussing how Noah must have felt having to turn people away, knowing that just outside his big door, women with children were drowning. The debate went on for some time, as the families moved to the big room after the meal. The kids were given the task of cleaning up and the parents opened a few more bottles of spirits. Talk about the bible went on late into the evening until, gradually, people retired to their areas, eager for a night's sleep.
Of course there were no windows in the bunker, so the rooms were dark and quiet, which meant that almost everyone rose very late in the morning. At breakfast, the women decided to start cooking something for supper. It was so late in the morning anyway that it only made sense to stay where they were and continue the adventure. Conversation again revolved around the bible and, after a short day, a fine meal, and more spirits, everyone again headed off to bed.
***
Dart speaks to Reader:
What was happening outside? A disaster for Earth. The war with the Grays had been raging for months, and to say that things looked bad for Earth's forces was a huge understatement. Nothing the military did seemed to make any difference. The combined technology of the Taskers, Neo Terra and Earth had little effect.
No, the world laser system was the first line of defense to be destroyed, then the space-borne fleets. Yes, I know, it seems almost impossible that all those ships could have been destroyed so quickly. But they were.
The ground forces were easily overrun at every skirmish, as were the lunar forces and those of Mars. The only reason the Grays hadn't yet completely overrun Earth was because it's so big. Small pockets of humans continued to fight back from every valley and mountain.
Didn't the other planets help? Of course. They'd already sent all their soldiers to Earth, except for skeleton forces. The government panicked and sent out new calls to the Tasker and Neo Terra worlds but, with travel times, little could be done to help Earth's forces. The only redeeming feature, from the point of view of humanity, was that the Grays apparently had no interest in attacking civilian positions as long as the militaries stayed away from them.
Not that any of this mattered.
Why?
The Grays decided to put an end to the fighting. They were angry about what the Enola Gay had done to their ships and they didn't intend to risk a repeat of that disaster.
Then came the deluge, the Night of the Black Rain, for deep in space the Grays had been building their final solution. Humanity didn't see it coming, and would have had no way of defending against it in any case. To say that the Grays' technology was superior was to say that humanity, in comparison, had hardly a brain at all.
Of course you want to know what the Grays did. It was amazing.
The Grays had amassed several gigantic iron cores and meteorites on the far side of the sun. Over several Earth weeks, they pulverized the iron and kept the fragments in suspension. They repeated the pulverization until they had created an unbelievably huge cloud of jagged black shards floating in space, each shard just large enough to survive descent through the atmosphere and arrive on Earth's surface at about the size of a 50-caliber shell. Like a huge ribbon in space, the Grays started the shards traveling toward Earth. When the line of fragments struck the planet, it extended from pole to pole and traveled in a line some five miles wide toward the rotation of the planet.
Yes, Reader, we can be very grateful that we weren't there. And here's just one story that shows why.
A young mother pushed a carriage, decorated with pale blue ribbons and containing her newborn son, down a suburban street in East Reno. She thought she heard a hissing noise but, before she could glance around, black shards began falling from the sky. She darted this way and that, trying to escape, unable to understand what was happening, or even to believe she wasn't hallucinating or caught in a nightmare.
A foot-long red-hot shard pierced her baby's body, stilling its cry, and she stood frozen, stunned and horrified. Before she could move again, another shard went through the top of her head, killing her.
By nightfall, a foot of hot iron covered the world. The mother and her child lay beneath this first layer of iron, so shattered and burned that there were no ridges to even mark their position.
You're right, Reader, it was horrible. And you can multiply that mother's experience by close to two billion.
For four days and nights, the fragments fell across the whole surface of the planet, annihilating everything in their path. All the trees, animals, crops, and the cities with their people, were torn and shredded, then pulverized into the ground. Because of the speed and weight of the molten iron and the fires it set, nothing remained standing anywhere that was more than a few feet above the surface of the planet, and a layer of five to six feet of metal shards covered all the land and hissed to the bottom of seas and lakes.
Did the iron keep on burning? Oh, no, the first four or five feet cooled and hardened. Some of the final layer of shards melded into the cooling iron, often with sharp ends pointing upward, but some of the black rain lay loosely on the surface.
***
Other than the knocking at the door, the people in the bunker had heard nothing and saw nothing, for the monitor no longer worked at all. Therefore, when they awoke and dressed on the third day, they decided to go outside and rejoin society. However, they could not get the big door to open. They spent the whole day trying, but the thing seemed jammed. They tried late into the night and, when exhausted, retired once again to their rooms. Tomorrow they would succeed.
At around noon on day four, the only door into the bunker finally moved upward about six inches. Sharp black metal shards poured through the opening and scattered across the floor.
"What the hell?" Byron exclaimed.
"Damn it!" said Betty, as she cu
t her fingers trying to pick up one of the razor sharp shards that skidded across the floor to rest at her feet. The other women rushed to her side to help her with the bleeding. The guys stood, dumfounded, staring at the mess of black metal bits.
"So what now, Dad? Are we trapped in here?" Jeremiah asked, as he kicked at a fragment that easily penetrated his boot and stuck in its sole.
"We're not licked yet, kids. Go get me those diesel cans from the back room. I say we start this tank I paid good money for, and see if we can pull the door down," Joshua commanded.
It took some time before the group managed to get the old tank filled with fuel. They first had to figure out where the fuel was supposed to go, and it took them even longer to figure out how to start and drive it. It was evening before the men managed to get the tank chained to the door, and then they stopped because of exhaustion and complaints from the women about the stink of diesel fuel.
It was decided that the following day would be an all-out effort to regain their freedom. The men spent the rest of the evening talking about the never-ending shards that seemed to be pouring into the bunker, and wondered if someone might even be playing a prank on the small group.
The next morning, with everyone helping, they used pieces of furniture, or anything else that was solid, to clear all the shards to the sides of the entrance ramp. The shards stopped pouring in, and daylight could be seen under the partly opened door.
"Well, halleluiah, God's blessed sunlight is still out there," Mike stated with a chuckle, obviously relieved.
The women ran for cover, taking the kids in tow, as the big tank surged to life. Within moments, the door had been pulled down and away from the entrance, exposing the true horror of the state of God's world. Another surge of black shards poured into the bunker from the ramp that led up to the back yard, causing Nate to yell to the women and kids to stay put, and not come looking until he said so. The men stood silent for some time, staring at the unreal scene, before Joshua finally said, "Help me unchain this tank. Let's drive up the ramp and have a look around."