High Pressure System: First Season Underground

by K. D. Kinney

  “I don’t know. I wonder if Jim is okay.” I was starting to feel a little anxious. I had too many close calls in or near the lobby and the control room was in the current danger zone.

  “I have to pee. We need to get out of here.” Marjie fumbled through her shoulder bag and pulled out a card. “About the only thing this is good for anymore.” She slid the credit card down the crack in the door, held it near the thumb pad and slid a second card where the door latch was and the door opened with ease.

  “How is it that easy to open the door?” I couldn’t believe it could be that simple.

  “The strip cancels out the sensor in the door. When we’re on the inside of the room it is much easier to undo the latch.” She checked the hall. I was right behind her listening for the music. We were probably too far away to hear it.

  I shut the dogs and Rocky in the room and we walked together to the bathroom. No one had been given the all clear so everywhere on the busiest floor in the bunker was silent and empty. Once Marjie finished her business, we went to the stairway door.

  I turned my head to listen for the music. It was hard to hear but it was still playing high above. What was drowning it out was what sounded like the rushing sound of a waterfall.

  “Look.” Marjie pointed to the floor near the door. The carpet was not only wet, it was dissolving away.

  “Don’t step in the water.” I pulled Marjie back.

  “We need to see what’s going on.” She grabbed a chair. Pushing it onto the wet carpet that was melting away, after she climbed on it, she opened the door a crack. “What the …”

  I stepped on the chair, caught my balance before I fell and was in shock over what was happening in the stairway.

  Water rushed down the stairs and it was milky white. Where the water pulled away from the sides when the current lessened, I could tell the concrete was washing away with the water.

  “That water is full of acid or something.” I pushed the door shut to keep the water out of the room. Sure enough, puddles were forming where the water had seeped in eating away at the concrete floor.

  Jumping off the chair, I looked for the call button on the thumb recognition pad. I thought for sure there was one someplace on the system set up in common areas. I found it.

  “It’s eating through my shoe.” Marjie kicked her ballet flat across the room and jumped off the chair far from the water soaked carpet.

  “Jim, Brandon?” I squeezed my eyes shut, hoping I wouldn’t be reprimanded for leaving a room during lock-down. That would be three strikes, right? “Jim or Brandon?”

  “This is Jim. You aren’t where you’re supposed to be.”

  “I know. There’s water running down the stairs and it’s eating away the carpet and the concrete.”

  “Security called that in. They are sandbagging the entry to The Farm as we speak. We can’t let the animals get into that.”

  “What should we do?”

  “Stay put. That’s why no one has been released from lock-down yet.”

  “My shoe.” Marjie showed me where the sole had been eaten through.

  “That’s the least of our worries if the rainwater is now trying to kill us.” I retrieved a tablet from the media room and searched acid proof materials. I was somewhat reassured that it wouldn’t eat through the metal. I chewed on my lip lost in thought.

  “How are we doing to get out of here if it’s going to eat through our shoes?”

  “We could strap a bread pan to your foot.” It wasn’t a bad idea to try that until the water dried up and went away.

  “You know what? I bet your pretty boy is down there sandbagging.”

  I kept my head down engrossed in the tablet, scanning through information. She was probably right. I had an idea.

  “Come on,” I said and headed for the kitchen. I rummaged through the cupboards until I found what I was looking for. Big bowls, sheet pans, what else could we stand on? I pulled them out of the cupboards and handed some to Marjie.

  “You weren’t kidding.” She made a face as if I was a lunatic.

  “Do you want to sit here and wait for them to let us out? We can go back to the planetarium. I can’t let the dogs do anything in here until the water is gone. Or we can roam the halls while we wait.” I set my stack of pans on the counter.

  “The library is where I’ve been dying to spend some time without everyone making it a zoo in there.”

  “Really? The biggest gossip in the building brings up that Micah could be a few floors below us and you want to read a book?”

  “He did tell us to stay put and that stuff ate through my shoe. I don’t see how we are getting down there by attaching these pans to our feet.

  “No.” I laughed. “That was a good idea though. I was going to use them to get to the rails and then we can climb down on the metal. Maybe.” Maybe it was a bad idea.

  “Hasn’t the water splashed all over everything? I would hate to find out how that feels on my skin.”

  I spotted an industrial sized box of aluminum foil. Tearing off a large sheet, I took it into the common room and set it on the floor on top of the standing water that was still slowly eating through the concrete. I set a chair on it and watched it.

  “There. That’s our protection. Let’s wrap our hands and feet in it.”

  “That is ridiculous.”

  “Go read a book then.” I went back into the kitchen. After pulling out several large sheets of foil, I wrapped several layers around my feet and up my leg.

  “One way or another we need to walk through that, don’t we?” she asked. Marjie pulled some large sheets for herself and started wrapping.

  “Yes.” I stomped on the ground to flatten the bottoms out.

  I contemplated the best way to cover my hands when Marjie found some heavy duty rubber gloves.

  “They are for working with some serious chemicals. You think they’ll work?” She tossed me a pair.

  “Perfect.” I pulled on a pair of gloves. Wearing our tin man fail of a Halloween costume on our feet and ankles, we went to the stairway. The water was no longer a river flowing down the stairs. More like a trickle with standing water in the places where it had etched into the concrete. The stair steps were rounded over the edges where the water had eaten away at the stairs. I could hear the music above and men talking down below.

  “Do we stay on the rail?” Marjie shuffled the baking pans under her feet over to the rails.

  “I’m testing my foot coverings.” I stepped out tentatively on a spot that was free of standing water and waited before taking my other foot off the tray. They seemed to hold up when I tested resting my foot in a puddle. Nothing came through. “I think we’re good. Just bring the trays with you, come on.”

  We made our way carefully down the stairs, trying not splash water up on ourselves. I could see a couple of men from the construction crew sticking their heads through the doorway. The ammonia animal stench burned my nose and my eyes the closer we got to the bottom.

  “I hope they never assign me to care for the animals.” Marjie gagged.

  “Me too. My dogs and the squirrel are hard enough to keep up with.”

  Then I saw him when he was staring right at me in disbelief until they all started laughing at us.

  “I thought everyone was still in lock-down,” Micah asked, chuckling now and then when he noticed our feet.

  “They are,” Marjie chirped as if our presence there wasn’t out of the ordinary.

  “You two just decided to take a walk in the acid rain, huh? Miss the surface that much?” the guy next to Micah asked.

  “Not really. We heard you were down here trying to save The Farm so we wanted to help.” She batted her eyelashes and smiled innocently.

  Okay, Marjie was the last person you would have expected to say she wanted to help make sandbags. She was too put together. However, she was a good liar. We couldn’t descend the stairs the rest of the way because of the two feet high standing water.

  A whirlpool o
ff to the side occasionally made a sucking sound. At least the water was able to drain.

  “You aren’t going to make it over here with your aluminum foil leggings. You might as well head back where you came from and wait for the all clear.” Another construction worker that poked his head through the doorway looked aggravated. Probably because we were someplace we shouldn’t be. “Oh! You’re the one that is always in the wrong place at the wrong time. What if that water spills down the stairs again and burns your hair off? You won’t have the looks to win the mastermind over anymore, would you?”

  My face burned and if my hands weren’t covered in bulky gloves, and carrying oversized cookie sheets, I would have stuck them in my sweatshirt pockets.

  “Hey,” Micah pointed at me. “Look, she knows a thing or two about how to protect herself with this stuff. The skin on my hands is burning and peeling off where I accidentally touched the water. Travis needs to see a doc as soon as we can get out of here safely. He didn’t know better and he’s out of work for who knows how long now.”

  “You want our gloves?” Marjie started to pull them off.

  “I think they have something like that down here and we should have asked for them before we started. The emergency is almost over. Thanks to your sharp thinking, at least we know what to use if it happens again.”

  The water was finally at a safe level. However, I didn’t want to be glared at anymore. Before I could turn around and head back up, Micah was standing on top of the sandbags and jumped to the stairs above the water puddle that filled the landing. “I’m going to see what damage there is up above and escort these ladies to safety while I’m at it.”

  Marjie not so discreetly nudged my ribs and smiled.

  14

  Getting a Backbone and Leaving it Behind Somewhere

  Once we climbed a couple of flights, I felt ridiculous with my foiled legs crinkling whenever I took a step.

  “What’s up? I saw the look you gave Rachel.” Micah held the door open to the floor below the common room and above The Farm.

  “Wait, why are we going here?” Marjie asked.

  I trailed behind a little. Micah stopped and turned.

  “Are you ready for another Brandon confrontation?” Micah asked me.

  I shook my head.

  “Too bad.” He hooked his arm in mine and escorted me through the construction debris. “This is where the new control room is going to be. It’s almost done. Good thing. He’s changed his mind about what floor he wanted this room to be on more than once. Otherwise it would have been finished much sooner.” He turned to Marjie. “You two are up to mischief together now? Is that what’s going on? She’s a bad influence you know.” He turned his head slightly to meet my eyes and gave me a half-smile.

  I rolled my eyes. I knew he didn’t mean it and I also saw something in the look he gave me that made my heart skip a beat. He stopped abruptly and examined his fingers.

  “I should probably wash my hands. This hurts far more than it should.” He squeezed his palm with his muddy hand. The one that was bothering him was red and a layer of skin of skin was peeling off his fingers already. “Can you help me in the bathroom, Rachel?” he asked as he headed for one of the only finished doorways in the room.

  “Umm, sure.” I followed him and gave Marjie a wide-eyed look. She gave me a thumbs up and I wanted to shrink and hide in my sweatshirt. All these matchmaking efforts.

  He held the door open with his body. I stepped into what was obviously a men’s public style restroom and hoped I wasn’t flushing all over my face. He looked at me while we stood at the sink.

  “Can you turn on some warm water for me?” he asked.

  “Oh, of course.” Man, I was dense. I turned on the water and tested the temp. He scooted closer until his hip was touching mine. Micah glanced at me briefly as he let the water run over his hands then he closed his eyes and winced from the pain.

  “What were you two up to? I don’t think it was just to try out those fantastic aluminum knee high boots you have on.”

  “Jim said there was sandbagging going on to save The Farm.” I debated on carrying on the lie or telling him the truth. I sighed. “We figured you were down there. We were looking for you.”

  “Is she your friend now?”

  “I guess.”

  “You know she’s been flirting with me plenty whenever she sees me.”

  “She also knows you prefer to keep an eye on me,” I said and there was no stopping the burn in my face. He flushed too.

  “That obvious, huh? I’m not sure you noticed though.”

  “I might have.” All of a sudden I didn’t know what to do with my hands, or my arms, maybe even my legs.

  “Hmm.” He finished washing his hands and examined his peeling fingers. “I’m not sure I will be working for a few days.”

  “Maybe I might see you?”

  “Why the sudden interest? I know I’m not easy to find sometimes. But you are impossible to catch up with.”

  “Not that impossible. I’ve spent a lot of time in the room you made for the school.”

  He scowled at me.

  “I haven’t had a chance to say thank you properly.”

  He raised his eyebrows for me to go on.

  “And you know things. You told me yourself so that’s not a secret. You just didn’t bother to tell me what they were. From what I’ve learned so far, I’m starting to understand why you get so upset.”

  “I’m not spilling my guts now. We have acid water all over the stairs, Brandon needs to know, and everyone else needs to be released from lock-down. Not like you pay attention to that sort of thing anymore.” Micah turned his back to me and walked out the door.

  “Wait, are you mad?”

  “No.” He walked past Marjie.

  There was a room at the end of the hall. Micah knocked and waited, rocking on his heels.

  Marjie and I waited behind him. I studied the crinkles of the foil on my feet when the door opened.

  “How’s the bottom floor?” Brandon asked.

  I stepped sideways so I was directly behind Micah, wanting to keep out of Brandon’s view as long as I could.

  “It’s safe and the water is draining. I’m concerned it drained into the aquifer. We need to come up with an alternate system if it happens again.” Micah fanned his hand.

  “What’s wrong? Who is that behind your back?” Brandon turned his head to the side until he could see me.

  I gave him an awkward wave and forced a weak smile on my face.

  “Guess who.” Micah wasn’t as warm as he was moments ago and I wanted to crawl away.

  “Miss Cooper too? You have a tendency to escape during lock-downs. I would have thought Rachel would have influenced you to stay put rather than wander around due to her multiple near death experiences.” Brandon glared at us both.

  I looked at Marjie in shock.

  “Well, I guess Micah was wrong about who the bad influence was.” She let loose a little nervous laugh.

  “It’s not a total loss though. They came up with a rather clever way to deal with the acid water. I think we should consider having the 3D printer work on some protective gear so we can deal with it.”

  “That’s quite the … ah … boots you have there.” Brandon couldn’t take his eyes off them for a very long minute. Maybe it was two.

  Micah went on to give Brandon the rundown on the damage on the stairs as far as we had gone. Marjie and I just waited in silence, unsure of whether to leave or stay put for further interrogation.

  Brandon looked at me when they were done talking. “Jim hasn’t been himself lately. In fact, I have been worried that all my concerns were wearing on him and put him in some sort of emotional crisis.”

  I wasn’t sure why I filled with fury. Micah’s sudden change and the dismissive way he just treated me was irritating and frustration over Brandon keeping secrets as to what happened to the rest of the world overwhelmed me so much that I couldn’t hold back my anger. “He
knows his family probably died and you’ve known all along. It bothers him you didn’t tell him and he’s had to wonder what awful death they might have suffered. In fact, I’m mad that you haven’t told us all what you know yet. Why do you think you have to keep it to yourself? Your burden would not be so heavy if everyone knew. Jim is your friend. He deserved to hear what you knew from you. Not hunt it down in the archives on your computer.”

  “That has been confidential.” Brandon’s face turned pasty white.

  “He really needs to know if his family is dead,” I said emphatically.

  “I don’t know that.” He shook his head.

  “No? But you do know the likelihood they survived is low. You shared what you knew about my family with me probably because the news wasn’t so grim.”

  Micah and Marjie shifted to silent observers during my confrontation with Brandon.

  “You need to let go of some information. You have to. You need to let Marjie know if her boyfriend was sent to a bunker. If you know where everyone’s parents, grandparents, children were sent. You gotta tell us.” My eyes welled up with tears. I blinked them back.

  “I know. I’ve been trying to find the right time. I’m really struggling with all that I know and I can’t tell everyone those things just yet. I will get there. Right now, the storms are out to kill us with something new and that is my priority. To make things worse, I haven’t been able to get a hold of Jim for some reason.” Brandon pressed the call button on the thumb recognition pad. There was no answer.

  “You don’t want to mess with that water.” Micah showed Brandon his hand.

  “I don’t know how we’re going to keep up with this.” Brandon rubbed his head and messed up his hair even more than it already was. He was about to turn into Einstein. I wondered if I should start calling him Einstein the younger.

  “I have some ideas. First, someone needs to go check on Jim. I’ve got that.” Micah didn’t waste any time and he motioned for me to come.