by M. L. Banner
“Actually, it affects everybody in the world,” Stoneridge corrected.
Max could have used a drink, bad. It was a feeling he hadn’t had for many years now, not since Basra. He puzzled over where this urge was coming from. Thankfully, he had no time for either drinking or wondering why he wanted one. The runners had returned safely. And now that it was dark, the next phase of his plan was to take place. It would be the one thing that would remove all aggression from the Squatts.
He walked briskly down Cicada’s main gravel road, called Russell Avenue, having just thanked the men and women who volunteered for what could have been deadly service. Rather than continuing straight to the watchtower and Operations below, where much of Cicada’s arms and a fair amount of its munitions were kept and where Cicada’s guards would usually suit up for an operation such as this, he turned right instead. He went around the Research Facility and marched straight up Max’s Court to his residence across from the Rec Facility. He didn’t have everything there, but he had more than what he and his partner needed to run his planned op quickly and quietly. The primary reason for the alternate prep venue was to avoid the scrutiny of others, especially Preston or the Kings.
He learned from both the Bible and the US military that to effectively control a population, there had to be a respect, which came from fear, which came from the rule of law, which must be policed absolutely by a higher power. This cause and effect was sometimes brutal and misunderstood by others who scrutinized their actions, believing a “kinder, gentler” policy was more humane. But that was always the opinion of a lazy few who were on a winning side. What Preston didn’t seem to realize was that they were losing right now. Once he had them back on a winning side, they could argue what was morally right or wrong ad nauseam. Until then, the last thing he wanted was to have to explain himself. Once the results of his policy were visible, Max believed few would complain about it.
What Cicada needed was quick policy execution so that it could immediately reap its benefits and not waste its valuable resources on unnecessary skirmishes. How could his Cicada family work and play under the threat of constant attack? And with some luck, Max hoped they could find out how a hodge-podge group of squatters got their hands on military explosives.
He angled to his residence; cutting across the empty road named after him and approached his small detached home, right next door to an ancient adobe dwelling known as the First House. It had stood long before his great-grandfather added to it a hundred and fifty years ago. Today, it was maintained as a museum and reminder of Cicada’s roots. The old mud-adobe building sagged from time and the elements.
Like a real-life demonstration of old vs. new, Max’s residence—and many of Cicada’s buildings for that matter—was made of a composite concrete block, consisting of a special polymer compound and concrete. The concrete was more for weight than anything else, as the polymer compound was as strong as steel and had an RF of 100 in the walls and ceiling. This construction turned out to be genius when the environment turned into 365 days of summer. Despite the unreliability of their power (and therefore their air conditioning), they mostly stayed cool.
Tom Rogers was already waiting for him by his front door: punctual, just like the military.
“Mr. Thompson.” Rogers stood at attention and held his hand out.
“Max, please.” Max shook his hand warmly. “Thank you for coming, Tom.”
“You’re very welcome Mr… Ah, Max,” Tom responded and watched Max open his front door and walk in. “Don’t we need to suit up at Operations?” he asked.
Max closed the door behind them and turned the deadbolt.
Tom wasn’t sure that Max had heard him because he hadn’t responded and continued walking to what looked like a bathroom door. Tom figured the man really had to take a leak. Max slid a long key into a lock that looked like overkill for a bathroom and opened the door. The room’s lights flickered on.
“We have all we need in here,” Max finally answered, beckoning Tom to come in.
“You ain’t kidding,” Tom said.
Max knew it was a prepper’s wet dream: seven fully equipped M4s, a couple AKs, two Mossberg shotguns, multiple handguns with suppressors, grenades, tactical vests and helmets. In the middle of the small room was a table with shelves underneath. These were filled with C4, various comms equipment and ammo.
“Let’s get suited up,” Max said as he grabbed a vest and tossed it to Tom, “and let’s go hunting.”
9.
Bios-2
Westerling waited impatiently in front of an innocuous but very secure door marked B216 and below that Authorized Personnel Only. He studied a thick multi-page document, which was heavily annotated and underlined; half of its pages hung by a single staple in the top corner. He reread the main points, not caring at all to decipher the tech-ese that made up most of the report. The result was what he cared about, not the technical reason why it occurred. And the result was not good. But he had a solution.
He closed the pages, rolled them up like a club and clutched them, punctuating his displeasure with a loud sigh. He really didn’t care for it down here. Everything sounded hollow and the light was unnatural. Deep down, he felt he’d get sick if he stayed too long. He looked down the short end of the L-shaped hallway to B225 and the doorway to his bunker and winced at the thought of staying there for an extended period of time. If this necessary exercise doesn’t take too long, he could get out of here and go topside where he belonged.
An electronic click echoed from the far end of the long side of the L, followed by two sets of boot steps and a large door closing. The boot sounds reverberated louder as they neared his location. As the two men turned the corner and headed his way, he could see that Dr. Carrington Reid was in front of one of his guards. Dr. Reid wore a smirk of confidence crowned by a fedora and an overall attitude of someone who was in control. This, of course, was a façade because Westerling was the only one in control of what happened here. He wanted to enjoy rubbing Reid’s nose in his own self-righteousness, but his end purpose was greater. He needed this man, but he didn’t want him to know it.
When they arrived, the guard nodded at Westerling, who nodded back. “Thank you, Jones.”
“Sir.” Jones stood at ease but clearly alert.
“Dr. Reid, I know you know who I am and I know you, so let’s get down to why you are here.”
Westerling turned and pressed his thumb on a flat-plate above a keypad, and the door instantly clicked its acknowledgement that he was “authorized personnel.”
“After you.” Westerling motioned Carrington inside and looked at the guard. “Stay here until I return.” Jones promptly turned, back to the corner, so he could see down both hallways and stood at attention as Westerling closed the door behind them.
He was about to set into motion a plan that would have a disastrous effect on both their lives.
The first thing Carrington noticed was the humidity. It was sweltering inside, like being covered by a hot, soaking wet wool blanket. Breathing became difficult. As he struggled inhaling, he began to get a sense of the room’s cavernous size. It was several stories of concrete-lined walls with massive machinery, some reaching up to and going through the ceiling of the room. Pipes, conduits and giant wires snaked up and down and around the space. Several huge conduits fed into what looked like a steam turbine in the room’s center. A similar group of conduits on the other side ran out of his field of view. The walkway they were standing on wrapped around the entire circumference of the chamber. Just in front of them, an opening in the walkway led to a stairwell that went down and around to the next wall, and then opened up onto the bottom floor.
Westerling stopped at the very edge of the walkway, only a small railing separating him from what was at least a hundred-foot drop. Just for a moment, Carrington thought, It would be so easy…
“I even know what you’re thinking,” Westerling said, and Carrington jumped, feeling like he’d been caught, his thoughts som
ehow exposed. “You’ll have ample opportunity to try that, but you’ll want to hear what I have to say first.”
It was the stifling heat, his sense of vertigo and perhaps the loud rumble of the machinery below that threatened to take hold of him and send him tumbling over; all conspired to knock him out at any moment. He said nothing and continued to stare forward and not down, desperately trying to get a firmer footing.
“Come here and take a look,” Westerling said. He waited to say anything more until Reid ambled over; instead, the scientist remained where he was, a few steps back from the railing.
Westerling chortled. “I see, so the larger-than-life Dr. Reid is afraid of heights. This is something I didn’t know.” He smirked.
Smug bastard. Reid trudged over, not willing to let this man get the better of him.
“What do you want?” Carrington snapped.
He noticed the shaft that ran from the main piece of machinery topside, trying to think of anything but down. It occurred to him that they were right under the tower where this prick had his penthouse overlooking the whole facility. He guessed this must be the main turbine for a geothermal power facility and the tubes were channeling the steam through and away from the turbine.
“You noticed the most central piece of Bios-2. This is our power source. It supplies the almost unlimited supply of power that runs this entire facility. It’s what gives us our lights, but even more important, our security. The length of conduit you are looking at, running through the ceiling, powers our EPF that keeps us safe by keeping all the cannibals out.”
Carrington couldn’t help but be intrigued with the brilliant design of the place. Feeling a little more confident, bolstered by his curiosity, he ventured a glance down the tube running from the shaft in the ceiling to the large turbine below. It hummed smoothly. On the other side of the cavernous room sat what looked like a bank of normal-looking gas generators. Perhaps backup.
“I can see you’ve figured out that our central generator is not powered by the diesel that runs our backup generators, which would be disastrous if it were to fail. Have you figured out how the main generator works and how it powers a small city of our size?”
Westerling obviously had some point to make, so Carrington patiently waited in silence for the conclusion of this insipid exercise.
“Fine, I’ll tell you… it’s geothermal.”
Westerling started walking slowly, using the railing as his guide. “Follow me; I want to show you something.”
Carrington reluctantly followed, interested, but still wondering what all of this had to do with him.
Westerling stopped where the walkway and railing elbowed left at the next wall that spanned a hundred feet or so until turning again along the next wall. “You see that?” He pointed to a large opening through the wall at the ground level.
Carrington looked and pointed to a closed door on the next wall, purposely being irritating. “That one?”
“No! There, where the tubes run from the generator into the next room. In there is an ancient volcanic vent that we cored out and tapped when we built this place. The superheated steam is channeled to the turbine you see here, to create our electricity.”
“It looks well designed. So what do you need me for?”
“Simple.” Westerling thrust at him the annotated document he had been studying earlier and holding the whole time. “Our scientists say we are screwed in a few months if we don’t find another source of energy. Here’s their report.”
“Is your vent running dry?”
“So to speak. They suspect it was the earthquake we had a few months back and that it somehow is causing our aquifer to drain off. Regardless, it’s just not outputting enough steam to fuel our generator to keep up with our energy demands. Even with our rationing, it slowly gets worse every month or two.”
“Okay, so why me? What do I know about geothermal power?”
“You may not know a lot about geothermal”—
I know a whole lot more than you do, buddy.
—“but you know a lot about solar, and last I checked, the sun seems to be generating a lot of electricity lately. I’m hoping I can convince you to help us figure out what we can build to harness this unlimited energy and supplement or replace our geothermal power.”
Carrington hadn’t expected this conversation at all. Maybe he had this guy’s intentions pegged all wrong. “Okay, fine, let’s say I have an idea or two on how to do this. Why would I help those who have separated and imprisoned my wife and me?”
“Okay, we overreached a bit in our tactics—”
“Overreached? Are you kidding me?”
“Have you seen the world we live in right now? It is full of really bad people. Truly, you have no idea how bad these people are. If they were not kept out, they would surely kill each and every last one of us.” Westerling carefully considered his next statement. “So here’s the deal. We all need to work together, not against each other. I know you don’t trust me, and that’s expected. But, in reality, you and your wife are free to go at any time.”
“You’re telling me that Melanie and I could leave right now and you won’t stop us?”
“That’s correct. But know this: You will die out there, and those cannibals will as surely eat you two as you are standing in front of me. Instead, you could stay here and help us solve this problem. Yes, you will have to live by my rules. And if you do, I promise you that you both will be able to live safe and peaceful lives. Cross my rules, we will kick you out.
“You see this?” Westerling said holding up a picture he pulled from his front pocket, showing a young woman and a child. “It’s a picture of my daughter and granddaughter, who live here, same as you and your wife. This was taken a year and a half ago at a house I own on Virginia Beach.”
He snuffled and started to tear up rather convincingly. “Since my wife’s death, they are the most important people in the world to me. Your wife is equally important to you, Dr. Reid. My men were wrong to separate you two. Two people who love each other should not be apart. When we’re done here, you two will be together once more and I promise you that you won’t be separated again.
“But there must be some conditions. I need you two to bring the other scientists back on board and have them use their collective efforts to help us all succeed. If you, or any of your scientist friends, don’t want to stay, you can leave. Likewise, if you don’t want to follow the rules, you’ll be asked to leave.
“Finally, before you answer me, I’d like you to come to my office tomorrow morning and take a look at the world you and your wife would have to live in, outside these walls. That’s it. Go now to your apartment, be with your wife; talk about what we have talked about. Then, tomorrow morning, I’ll send a guard to escort you both to my Observation Tower and I’ll show you what you probably won’t want to see, but you’ll need to see.
“Thank you, Dr. Reid.”
Westerling didn’t wait for an answer. He walked past Carrington toward the door they had come in.
Before he left, Carrington looked back at the other room and wondered what it was. A security guard stationed in front of the room’s entrance looked up at him, a steady contact that seemed to say that he could read Carrington’s mind. The guard’s look was telling him, “Don’t even try it.”
When Melanie opened the apartment door, she wasn’t exactly sure what she expected to find. She wanted to believe what Gufstafson told her, that she and Carr would be reunited. But she didn’t really expect it to happen, assuming the worst instead: it was all a mistake; they found out what she was planning and changed their minds; she was delusional and imagined the whole thing. She became sure that they wouldn’t allow Carr and her to be together.
So when the door swung wide to reveal Carrington sitting casually on their sofa in their small living room, working on some project—he was always tinkering with something—it was almost a complete surprise. She dropped the remains of her sack lunch in the entry. “Carr! My God,
is that really you?” In just a few long strides, she closed the gap and jumped on top of him.
“You’re… crushing… me.” He smiled up at her and she backed off of him, sliding onto the couch. “Who did you think it would be in our home?” he asked.
“Is that what this is, our home?”
He dropped the two wires he was carefully holding and looked at her. “Melanie Sinclaire-Reid, our home is wherever we are together.”
“Did you get told the same line I did?”
“You mean if we behave ourselves, we are allowed to stay here, but if we don’t want to stay, we can leave of our own volition, and if we break the rules we’re out? Then yes, I was told pretty much the same thing.”
“Do you believe it?” If he did, perhaps she could, too.
“I figured we probably don’t have a choice. But, I guess we’ll find out a little more tomorrow.”
“Yeah, we get to visit his palace in the sky and see for ourselves how bad it is out there.” Melanie looked down. She wasn’t sure what to believe anymore. The only things she was sure of were that she loved him and she’d do anything for him.
She looked up and saw that he had scribbled a note and pushed it her way. It read “Bugged?”
She lifted her shoulders as if to say, “I don’t know.” Then she grabbed the pencil and added “So we better be careful.”
He nodded.
“What’re you building?” she scribbled.
He grabbed the note and scribbled on the back, pushing it back to her.
She flipped it over. “A bomb!”
10.
Outside of Cicada
Max and Tom were almost invisible, walking silently, holding close to the shadows; no easy task, as the shadows constantly danced, being coaxed away by their malicious collaborators, the fiery aurora-filled skies above.