High Pressure System: First Season Underground

by K. D. Kinney

  I was practically inhaling the food on my plate. Slowing the pace of my silverware, I had a feeling I should savor what I had left because he was about to share something with me that would have me reconsider my relationship with amazingly tasty food. “Meh. I don’t mind the kids. The teens want to challenge my knowledge all the time. I’ve turned it around so they are sharing what they know with the class instead. I’m having trouble with the Cooper boy. Everyone is eating up his antics in the classroom so it encourages him even though I’ve told him I’m totally not interested.”

  “You’ve seemed to go into hiding again.” Instead of eating, Jim moved the spaghetti around his plate.

  “I’ve been studying the stars.” I evaded eye contact. “And I’ve decided to become a nun.”

  Jim actually laughed. “No you haven’t.”

  “Can’t I pretend?” I pleaded, turning my head to the side and giving him my best puppy eyes.

  “Think of it this way, if one of those young men don’t suit you, at least you have a backup. Remember when it was looking pretty bleak when it was only Brandon and he didn’t seem interested in you at all when you were pursuing him.”

  “I like wishful thinking over real life heartbreak though. And I wasn’t pursuing him. I was just curious.”

  Jim sighed. “Fantasy worlds are always better than real life.” He looked up at the wallet-sized pictures of his three kids taped to the wall above the table. “I really wish I had one of my wife.”

  I didn’t know what to say so I finished cleaning up my plate and knew I probably wasn’t going to like what he was about to share. When the silence was unbearable in the room, I went for it. “What has you looking like the werewolf version of Brandon tonight? Have you spent too much time with him and then checked out the moon? That’s forbidden, you know.” I smiled, trying to buffer the growing tension.

  He focused on my face and gave me a little half-smile. “I think I’m starting to understand some of the things that were getting under his skin.” He scooted his chair back and acted as if he was going to remove our plates from the table. I grabbed them before he did.

  “I need to show my appreciation for sharing your fantastic cooking skills with me. I’ve missed having decent spaghetti. You should take over on spaghetti days.” I washed off our dishes.

  “I can’t make it on a scale like that. Feeding two hundred people at spaghetti feeds, it never tastes the same.”

  I settled back in the chair across from Jim. “What has you so upset?”

  He leaned on his elbows. “You can’t go into hiding again if I tell you.”

  “It’s that bad?”

  “Yes. I need to talk to someone and that’s why I’m telling you this. If I don’t get this out, I don’t know what I’ll do.” He lightly touched the pictures on the wall as tears filled the corners of his eyes. “You and I, we are the lucky ones. That doesn’t matter to me now. I wish I was with them more than ever.” Jim rubbed his face.

  “I’ve known we were pretty lucky since they discovered that the ones in the other bunkers died.”

  “No, it all depended on what lot you were assigned to. The ones in the other bunkers, they were supposed to be the lucky ones too.” His voice choked him off and he coughed to clear his throat. “Every city and town was set up the same way. They couldn’t make enough of these bunker apartments for everyone in the nation. There was no way. When our bus took us here, we won the lottery and we didn’t even know we were playing.”

  “Micah said something like that to me the other day.” I didn’t like what I was feeling growing in my chest. “What kind of lottery?” I was sure I didn’t want to know.

  “Some of the other buses were sent to random locations. Some were basic dugouts, or abandoned military bases. The bus drivers didn’t know. No one actually knew where they were going or that they weren’t on the chosen list to survive. Those people were basically shuttled to their death, sacrificed because there wasn’t enough of these. They did it because it was easier to give everyone hope in the midst of chaos. I don’t get it though. Why shuttle everyone away from the comforts of home? No one knew exactly what we were evacuating from so why did they have to die that way?” He couldn’t hold back the sob as his fingers trailed over the pictures of his kids. “Why couldn’t I chance going home so they didn’t have to go through that on their own? Why did I win the lottery and they didn’t?” He rested his head on his arms and he cried.

  I’m not sure if I forgot how to blink. I wanted to touch his arm, but I couldn’t. Things that Brandon told me and Micah’s anger were fitting together. No wonder Brandon didn’t tell me why he couldn’t find Jim’s family on any of the bunker lists. Micah said I won a lottery being here. Somehow, my family did too. Little good that served some of the evacuees in the other bunkers. The ones closest to us were dead. If it depended on the lot you were assigned to, did that mean Corbin was sent to his death? Was Micah’s family assigned to their deaths but Brandon knew and helped him save his family somehow? My mind was racing even though my body was frozen.

  “Do you know for sure that your family was sent to die?” I gripped the edge of the table.

  “I put the pieces together. My skills on the computer in no way rival Brandon, but I’ve had plenty of time to navigate through the archives in his system. I found the final evacuation plan. It was so massive though, it took me days to figure out where the bunker lists were. Brandon has been reviewing them and creating files on us all. He has all of our histories, our family connections, and where those family members were sent. Even though no one really knows him, he totally knows all of us and the people we’ve left behind. Maybe that’s how he deals with the guilt. He knows us all like he’s our best friend and none of us have had a clue.”

  “What do we do with this information? Do we tell the others?” My head was reeling. I had a good idea what might happen if the news got out. The fact that Brandon knew them all like family wasn’t going to matter to anyone at all. I could feel the heat rising from my chest into my cheeks.

  Jim grabbed my hand. “It’s not his fault. You need to understand that first of all. He was only in charge of building bunkers. I’m just sick he didn’t tell me himself. When I think about it, honestly, how could he?”

  I was finally able to gather myself. I stood and paced his apartment. “So why was my family spared?”

  “What does your father do?” Jim looked at me as if I was dense.

  “He’s a scientist. At a pharmaceutical company. Oh.” I stopped wearing out the carpet and sat back down in my chair.

  “Some special privileges there. I don’t know why I was special enough to be here and how my family didn’t rate on that list over there. Except there are more in my hometown who could buy their way into a safe place.

  “Not everyone here was someone special out there. Only the Harpers had any money. We have several doctors and vets, but everyone else seems pretty average. Like the perfect community population.

  “Think about it. How diverse are we all in here? Not very.” Jim rubbed his face hard. “You need to spend more time with Micah. I believe he knows some things about this place that everyone else doesn’t know.”

  “Do you know what? If you do, you should just tell me.” I never could find Micah. He was probably hiding from me more than I was hiding was him.

  “No, I actually don’t know. I tried. He hints at stuff and then he won’t tell me. Somehow he found the time to build you a special room that you asked for when he was putting in twelve hours a day on the construction crew. He might tell you.”

  That bit of information just made me feel guilty. I didn’t realize Micah was working such long days while he built it. He wasn’t the one that shared it with me when I saw it for the first time. “Did you find your family after all?”

  “I did, sort of. I can only assume they didn’t survive. You know what? No one may survive when all of this is over. I just wish I wasn’t alone.”

  “Now I’m going to c
onsole you the way you have me. You’re not alone.” I gave him a big hug. “If anything does happen to me here, I want you by my side.” Jim hugged me with the same warmth I’d felt from my dad’s hugs. I hoped I helped a little bit even though I was poor replacement for his family. I was overcome with even more guilt over the fact that my family was sent to a bunker like ours and I at least had some hope that they were still alive.

  There was no denying that Jim could eventually be right about one thing. It might not matter that we’re still alive. We could just be putting off the inevitable.

  13

  Subduing the Gossip

  I didn’t sit in my apartment sulking after Jim’s news. People watching on the community floor was what preoccupied me. I imagined all the family and friends everyone might have lost on the outside. Rather morbid. I also actively looked for Micah even though I had been avoiding the males that were interested in me because I didn’t want to choose one. He had been scarce since we barely survived in one of the closets. I never did get a chance to thank him properly for the planetarium he made for me, and my students. He called it the Indoor Outdoor simulator and I loved it. Actually it probably wasn’t made just for me and I wasn’t the only that loved the starry skies from the projector. Brandon had created a few educational shows for my science classes. It made us all sad about our shut-in status sometimes. The kids would tell me stories of playing zombies in the graveyard or some such silliness at night, or camping tales.

  “So what has you out in public alone and lost in thought?” Marjie pulled up a chair. She had been trying to befriend me since I started teaching. I guess I wasn’t cooperating.

  “I’m not alone. The dogs need some playmates other than me.” I did lose track of the dogs while I was daydreaming nightmarish scenarios for everyone’s extended families. “Kind of bugs me the other moms have banished the pups during the day. I can’t check on them during lock-downs.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t think that was right either. At least The Farm lets you take them down there.”

  “But they come home smelling like crap every day. I have to bath them constantly. If they would just stop rolling in the poop down there, I wouldn’t mind so much.” I turned my tablet on to make myself look busier than I was. Scanning lessons for the next day was what I was supposed to be doing.

  “What’s been wrong with your adopted daddy? He hasn’t looked good lately.”

  Marjie didn’t miss much. That didn’t surprise me. She loved gossip.

  I wanted to shrug and blow her off, but I changed my mind. She might be useful. “This is top secret. I know it’s hard for you to be quiet about something. However, I might need your help.” I waited for her undivided attention. I had to bite the inside of my cheek so I didn’t laugh. She was all too eager with her gigantic eyes waiting for the next word to escape out of my mouth. She looked more like the seven-year-olds in class instead of the eighteen-year-old she was.

  “What? You can’t say that and not go on.” Marjie scooted to the edge of her seat.

  “Before I tell you anything, you need to promise me you will tell your brother to stop harassing me. I am seriously not interested in him and can’t teach with his ridiculous behavior.”

  “He’s harmless.” She waved me off.

  “No, it’s annoying and I’m not that great at teaching to deal with his crap.” I was serious.

  “All right, I’ll talk to him. Hopefully that’s not all you were going to tell me.” She leaned back in her chair and checked her nails, quickly losing interest.

  “No. Jim found out what might have happened to his family and it’s terrible.”

  “What, they didn’t make it?”

  I could tell she wasn’t grasping the nationwide scale of what that meant. “Most people didn’t make it. He said he didn’t know how many were selected to live in one of these. What that means is there wasn’t enough of them.”

  Marjie’s face turned white as she started to catch on. “Wait. What are you saying?” Her voice escalated.

  “I’m not saying anymore about it here. Especially if you’re about to freak out and can’t be discreet about the things I’m telling you right now. I’ll tell you when there are fewer people around.” I stood to leave the table and already regretted saying a word to her.

  “No.” She grabbed my arm and wouldn’t let me go. “You tell me right now or I will make a scene if you don’t.” I had never seen Marjie be that demanding before and I had seen a few of her scenes since we arrived.

  “We have to go elsewhere.” I picked up my tablet and waited for her to follow. I didn’t have to call the dogs or Rocky the Rescue Squirrel. They wriggled out the little girls’ arms and wrestled at my feet. The little girls moaned as they said goodbye. Marjie and my pets followed me to the indoor outdoor simulator. Everyone else called it the planetarium. My pets loved it in there. The dogs basked in the heat from the light that looked like the sun and Rocky had plenty of dwarf fruit trees to explore. I checked the halls before closing the doors. Everyone was gone.

  I sighed, feeling as if I should lie. I was terrible at that. “You can’t share this, you can’t use it make a scene, and you can’t try to blackmail me because I shared this with you.” I fiddled with my sweatshirt zipper.

  “Why would I do all that?” she asked, miffed at such restrictions.

  “Because you do that sort of thing. You like gossip, you know everyone’s business, and sometimes you don’t understand when something should be kept to yourself. You lack a filter.”

  She looked at me open-mouthed. I could tell she was sorting out how she should feel about my accusations. Her eyes watered a little and then her cheeks reddened. I couldn’t help it. I tapped her chin so she would close her mouth.

  “I’m sorry if you thought that was mean. That’s why I haven’t wanted to get too close to you. I want to tell you what I know, I really do. You absolutely can’t blab this to anyone.”

  She nodded slowly.

  “You have to promise.”

  “You haven’t wanted to be my friend because I over share?”

  “You over share without thinking about who you might be hurting when you do that. You thought for sure a couple of married people were having affairs. They have kids. Everyone started to talk and watch. Even when I almost killed everyone accidentally, I heard some of what you speculated was going on with me and Brandon. Not everyone here is out to have secret trysts. We are all trying not to die.”

  Marjie’s eyes couldn’t hold the tears back anymore. “I was just trying to distract myself from what I couldn’t control. I really do want to know what happened to some of the others. My boyfriend and his family went to the West lot. He told me he didn’t think we were ever going to see each other again. I wanted to get on his bus. I tried risking missing my own and they wouldn’t let me.”

  “What I’m about to tell you isn’t going to help you feel any better. Partly because I don’t know much about how we ended up here.” I clenched my jaw before I said anymore.

  “I need to know.”

  “I don’t have detailed information and you’ll just imagine horrible things like I have been doing all day.”

  She grabbed my arm. “Just tell me.”

  Now I was teary eyed. I thought about Brandon and all he knew and was keeping from us. No wonder he couldn’t share this. “Not all the buses were going to bunkers like this. Jim thinks his family was sent to some random location and that they were sent there to die. There weren’t enough bunkers. Jim and Micah say we pretty much won the lottery. That’s why we are here. None of the bus drivers knew where they were headed, what kind of shelter they were going to.”

  “So was our lot the survivor lot?” Marjie wiped her eyes.

  “I don’t even know that. Jim doesn’t have any idea. It’s in the archives on the computer somewhere, I guess.”

  “Brandon likes you, surely you can find out?”

  “Look, I only want to be Brandon’s friend and I’m trying to be c
areful.” Marjie’s sad eyes swayed me. “Jim asked me to find out something else and that’s why I need your help. I guess if you decide to help me, you could be my partner in unraveling some mysteries. You can use your information finding skills for something better than gossip.”

  Marjie smiled a little. “Something to do other than herd little kids to the bathroom and cleaning up after them would be nice.”

  “Good. Do you remember the construction worker, Micah?”

  “Oh, yeah. He’s dreamy hot. I like keeping an eye on him. He likes to keep an eye on you.” She poked me with her elbow.

  “Yeah,” I said, trying to dismiss her keen observations skills again. “I haven’t seen him much lately. Jim says he knows things, that there are secrets here we all know nothing about. Jim asked me to see if I could get Micah to open up to me.”

  “Why do you need me? Want me to flirt with him to drive him to you?” She smiled in a manner that made me wonder if I was making a mistake.

  “No. I can’t figure out where he lives. That’s what I need to find out. If I can’t find him, and I think he’s avoiding me on purpose, I can’t find out a thing.”

  The lock-down siren went off in the hall. Thankfully, the sound buffering tiles had been installed near the lobby and The William Tell Overture only blasted up there and in the stairwell. We could faintly hear it in the community room, but in the planetarium, I couldn’t hear it all.

  The dogs cowered at my feet as everything in the room shook from the weather assaulting the bunker floors above.

  Marjie and I pressed our thumbs on the recognition pad near the door and we were locked in together. We sat on the floor and played with the dogs while we waited out the storm. I didn’t have horrible flashbacks anymore. We had so many storms so frequently that it helped desensitize me. This one went on for a long time, though.

  “Do you think he forgot to signal the end of lock-down?” Marjie asked.

  The rumbling overhead had stopped.

  Jim had been taking on more responsibility in the control room near the lobby as Brandon supervised the construction of the new control center closer to the bottom floors. Maybe they were asleep on the job.