by Lee Bradford
“Sounds like the urban legend about department stores piping subliminal messages over the PA.”
“Yeah, now you’re getting it. ‘Don’t steal.’ ‘Buy more worthless stuff.’”
The two men laughed.
Buck tossed a fresh stone. “By the way, if Earl Mullins comes up to you, don’t give him the time of day.”
Paul’s eyebrows rose. “I thought Earl was a friend of yours. He gave you a standing ovation after your speech in the dining hall.”
“That’s what I thought, before I discovered the guy ain’t nothing but a two-faced punk.”
“He was talking behind your back?” Now Paul was genuinely interested.
“Nah, I passed him in the corridor this morning. He was with his family and he gave me the cold shoulder. You know me, Paul. I don’t take kindly to being snubbed, so I raised my voice and even pulled his arm. Hey, maybe he went deaf in his sleep last night. Anyway, he stared at me like I was a stranger and herded his family away like I was the big bad wolf. Won’t be surprised if those other two do the same.”
“Jeb and Allan?”
“Haven’t seen them since. I ain’t got no use for people who turn on you at the drop of a hat.”
Paul’s mind was turning a mile a minute. “Maybe he became uncomfortable with all the conspiracy talk.”
“No way, Rock Star. Earl was more of a hardcore conspiracy theorist than I am. Every time we got to talking he always found a way of bringing the conversation back to 9/11. ‘What happened to building seven, Buck?’ he’d shout. ‘What happened to building seven?’ Like how the heck should I know?”
“But all that nonsense about a coup. The president being overthrown by a usurper.”
Buck turned to him. “I was only repeating the same thing we both heard from Brett.”
“He’s a kid in a uniform,” Paul replied. “What the heck does he know? And what if he’s wrong, Buck? What’s the payoff for getting everyone all riled up for nothing? It distorts the delicate equilibrium in here.”
Buck stepped back and frowned. “Who got to you?”
Paul straightened. “What do you mean?”
“‘Delicate equilibrium.’ That doesn’t sound like you. Sounds like someone gave you an earful and you’re passing it along.”
“No one spoke to me, Buck,” Paul lied, wondering if someone had also given Earl a similar threat of being kicked out. He hated to fib, but revealing the truth would only strengthen Buck’s outlandish idea that the director was aiming to enslave them. “You’re being paranoid. All I’m saying is that it’s best not to rock the boat too much before we know the score.”
Buck grew quiet after that and the two men walked on for a while in silence. Finally they reached the airlock which led to Ark Two, the science and engineering complex.
“Let me show you what I mean,” Buck said and headed through the airlock’s heavy doors. A handful of others were inside with them, waiting for the red light to turn green. When it did, they exited into what might have passed for the main entrance of a pharmaceutical laboratory. Men and women were coming and going, some in lab coats, others in coveralls.
“Yes, I’ve been here, Buck. Ava brought us on a tour.”
Buck kept walking.
“Hey, where are we going?”
“Stop whining and walk like you own the place,” Buck growled.
The security men at the front desk were busy redirecting a lost civilian when Buck and Paul slipped past them. They rounded the corner and came to a bank of elevators. One of them was about to close when Buck stuck his hand in.
They climbed in, surrounded by science and engineering types who didn’t hide their questioning looks.
Paul stared down at the control panel and saw there were ten floors above them and six beneath. Basement one and two both said engineering, but it was the classification of the other four basement floors which made the blood in his veins run cold. They were marked biohazard one through biohazard four in descending order. Paul clicked the button for biohazard one.
“I’m not sure you two are supposed to be here.” A balding man in a lab coat spoke up from the back.
Buck cleared his throat. “We’re part of a study on venereal diseases.” He nudged Paul, who began scratching himself.
The balding scientist took a step back.
Two engineers got on right as the elevator began to close. The doors nearly touched when a bell rang and the doors swung open. Standing outside the carriage was the guard from the front desk.
“Come with me,” he said.
Paul’s heart sank. He’d been trying with everything he had to rein Buck in and all he’d managed to do was get himself into more trouble.
“Don’t worry,” Buck said. “Just let me do the talking.”
Chapter 16
Paul and Buck were held alone in a tiny room for close to an hour. At last, two men in dark suits entered and sat across from them. They were armed, their pistols swinging back and forth from the shoulder holsters they were wearing. The trick, Paul knew, would be to play dumb and act dumber.
Which was why Paul spoke up before Buck had a chance to open his big mouth. “Listen, gentlemen, my father here is old and senile,” he told them.
“What are you talking about?” Buck shouted, but the bone-white hair on top of his head wasn’t doing him any favors.
Paul gave them a pained look and half whispered. “Denial. It ain’t just a river in Egypt, let me tell you.”
They smiled weakly.
“You gentlemen were in a restricted area,” one of the agents said.
“See, here’s the thing,” Paul told them. “Pa loves to ride the elevator. Up and down all day long. It’s like a religion for him. Only thing that keeps him from pulling his hair out. A side effect of all the medication he’s on. Anyway, we were walking through the park and he started yelling, ‘Upsy downsies,’ which is his way of asking for an elevator ride. You can’t imagine how unbearable he gets when he doesn’t get his way—”
One of the security guards poked his head in.
“Agent Vickers, phone call for you. It’s the director.”
Paul’s pulse quickened.
Vickers rose and left the room.
“Is there anything else you want to add?” the other agent asked.
“Yeah,” Buck replied. “Something in this place stinks.”
Buck wasn’t making this easy and Paul had to think fast. “Oh, Pa, that’s just your colostomy bag come undone again.”
Buck looked at him with eyes that promised a swift beating when this was over and done with.
Vickers came back into the room and stood by the door. “You two are free to go.”
“We are?” Paul said, trying and failing to hide his surprise.
“Please head back to Ark One immediately.”
“You’ll never see us again,” Paul promised.
They rose and filed out.
Both agents watched as they walked through the reception area and headed toward the tram. A stroll through the park would take too long, and besides, Paul’s legs were still weak.
“You nearly got us killed back there,” he scolded Buck after they’d reached the platform. A digital display indicated the next train was due in five minutes.
“Nonsense. Our taxes paid for this place. We had every right to see what’s going on.”
“I think the men with the guns might disagree.”
At the far end of the platform, Paul spotted the two agents, watching them.
“Are they really wearing sunglasses? That’s so cliché.”
“You suppose they’re trying to intimidate us?”
“Not more than they already have. I’ll bet they’re here to make sure we go back where we belong.”
Buck glared at them.
A moment later, the tram roared into the station. Paul and Buck got on and took a seat. Slowly, the train pulled away for the short journey to Ark One.
“I’m still trying to work out w
hat all that biohazard stuff was for.”
Paul considered this for a moment. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
“Saw a documentary on lethal diseases. Stuff capable of wiping out the human race. We’re talking biblical plagues here.”
“Yeah, I get it,” Paul said, wringing his hands.
“Those bad boys are normally given a biohazard level of four, the same level we saw back there.”
“Maybe they’re working on vaccines,” Paul offered. “We’ve seen how these bunkers are designed to protect and maintain important branches of the government. Well, maybe this is where the CDC is now headquartered.”
Buck nodded. “That does make sense.”
“And if you’re right about the danger of a level four biohazard, then it begins to make sense why they wouldn’t want unauthorized people snooping around. Might also be why they gave us an inoculation when we first arrived.”
Buck spat. “My rear end still smarts.”
Paul grinned, recalling the panic on the old man’s face when he’d seen an inoculation was coming.
“Mine too,” he replied, rubbing the spot where the auto-injector had done its damage.
Buck had raised some important questions. Paul could see the old man wasn’t completely sold on his explanation. There seemed to be more than a few secrets floating around this place. A bunker dug into a hollowed-out mountain, top-secret areas shrouded in mystery, and more creature comforts than most of the civilians were used to.
It was then that it dawned on him. Something about the living quarters that Ava had told him during their initial tour. That they were initially designed to house members from the House and the Senate. At the moment the government and science people stayed in Arks Two and Three.
In that light, the stark reality of this installation began to come into sharp focus and it explained why they’d struggled so much in the beginning with the influx of civilians. This bunker hadn’t been built with them in mind at all. In the event of a SHTF-type scenario, American civilians were considered expendable.
Chapter 17
The message over the loudspeaker came early the next morning.
“All residents from Ark One are required to present themselves to the science and engineering wing by 0800 hours.”
Paul’s eyes snapped open as the message blared again. It seemed to be on a loop. In the bunk above him, Buck snored away merrily, sounding like a wildebeest searching for a mate. Susan and Autumn were already up.
His daughter was worried. “What’s going on, Dad?”
“I haven’t the foggiest idea,” he told her. “Last thing I remember I was dreaming about The Wanderers. We were set to go on stage and I couldn’t find my guitar.”
“You normally have that dream when you’re stressed,” Susan said, seated before the desktop computer. A tickertape along the top and bottom of the screen was repeating the message as it played over the speaker. Even the digital window was doing the same.
Annoying alarm aside, Paul was starting to feel the pressure of keeping Buck under control. Of course he hadn’t told Susan what had happened in the elevator the day before. Wasn’t any sense worrying her for nothing. Although Paul couldn’t help but wonder himself if this assembly was somehow connected.
“How long before we need to be there?” he asked, feeling the overwhelming need to brush his teeth.
“Twenty minutes,” Susan told him.
Paul looked up at Buck, the mattress on the upper bunk sagging under his weight.
“That should be just enough time to get Buck on his feet.”
They reached the science and engineering wing twenty-five minutes later. Turned out waking Buck from a bad dream was just as deadly as waking a sleepwalker. Paul rubbed the bump on his forehead where Buck’s knuckle had caught him square on the noggin.
“Coulda been worse,” the old man said, looking rather satisfied with himself. “A few inches down and I’d have given you a real shiner.”
Paul shook his head, eyeing the crowd already gathered. While most had opted to wait for the tram, others had chosen to cut through the Park. For the two men, this was something of a déjà vu since it had only been a few hours earlier they’d nearly been imprisoned on these very grounds by Secret Service types.
There must have been several hundred civilians gathered in Ark Two’s Atrium, all of them dressed in the same drab potato-sack outfits. At least, that was what Autumn had taken to calling them. All she’d talked about on the way over was Brett and what a sweetheart he was for trying his best to get her a better outfit. Paul’s attempts to remind her she wasn’t away at summer camp had been swiftly shot down by Susan. Since when did fathers no longer have a say in who their daughters dated?
An improvised platform and podium blocked off the narrow approach to the elevators. The crowd was filled with nervous energy. A million rumors were buzzing through the crowd. “They’re throwing us out,” some said. “They’ve run out of food and they’re kicking us to the curb.” Others joined in, offering a historical basis to back up the possibility. Castles under siege during the Middle Ages, they argued, often ejected the peasants and townsfolk as soon as the stores of food and water got low. Additional theories came, each more outlandish than the last.
“They got these people exactly where they want ’em,” Buck said.
“Frightened?” Paul replied, not entirely sure he believed it.
“Don’t you see? These sheeple have already jumped to the worst possible scenario.”
“So?”
Buck gave him the look which said, Stop being such a dullard. “So, anything they propose now will seem like a huge improvement over banishment and death.”
Just then Ava climbed up to the podium. She tapped the mic and it made a hollow sound.
“Isn’t she great?” Buck said. “She’s a natural.”
“Yeah, a natural microphone-tapper. Susan, I think your father’s having an aneurysm.”
“Boys,” his wife said in a motherly tone. “Be nice.”
“Tell him that,” Paul protested.
Buck shushed him. “I’m trying to listen.”
“First and foremost,” Ava began, “I’d like to thank you all for assembling this early. My apologies for our methodology, but we didn’t know a less intrusive way of getting all nine hundred and fifty of you here on time.”
Heads in the crowd looked around, as if to see what nearly a thousand people standing in one room looked like.
“In a moment, I’ll be bringing Director Van Buren on stage to address you. Some of you have already been introduced, others have seen him around. But I’d like to take a moment to tell you a little bit about the man. Mr. Victor Van Buren came from humble origins. His parents both survived the Nazi camps and dreamed of a fresh start in America after the war. Starting out as a shoeshine boy, Mr. Van Buren quickly demonstrated a knack for business the New York Times said was unparalleled since the likes of Cornelius Vanderbilt. In a few short years, he transformed a humble shoeshine business into a veritable empire. Always in search of a challenge, in the 1980s he bought a little biotech company named Novogen and grew it into one of the largest Fortune 500 companies in the world. With architecture, construction and bioengineering firms, Mr. Van Buren was an easy choice to build the next generation in protective installations. The Ark was a facility we hoped we would never need, but America’s enemies made sure we did. The country outside the protective confines of these walls has been hurt, horribly wounded, but not fatally. Not by a long shot. The dust will settle as it did after 9/11, as it did after Pearl Harbor, and when it does we’ll leave here together knowing within each of us is the key to rebuilding a better, stronger America. Please join me in welcoming the man to whom we owe a tremendous debt of gratitude, your director, Mr. Victor Van Buren.”
The reception area exploded with thunderous applause and it only increased as Van Buren stepped onto the stage. Tall and dressed in a dark grey suit, he reached the podium and adjusted the micro
phone.
“It won’t be easy following up that wonderful introduction,” he said, nodding to Ava Monroe.
A smattering of laughter from the crowd.
“Our great country will rise again one day,” he began. “This isn’t a political slogan. I’m speaking from the bottom of my heart. I’m also speaking as a man with a plan, as the kids like to say these days, because the first step in America’s rise begins with a brand-new initiative: Work for Food.”
Paul and Buck exchanged an uneasy look.
“Each and every one of us needs to pitch in and do our part. This nation achieved greatness on the shoulders of generations of hard-working Americans and I plan on calling on that strength today. There are jobs for everyone here in the Ark and the rules of the program are simple; the work you do will be paid in vouchers which you can exchange for food and drink.”
Murmurs passed through the crowd. People might have hated the circumstances that had brought them here, but they’d certainly grown accustomed to a leisurely existence. As Buck had mentioned earlier, many lived their day-to-day existence as though they were on vacation. The lack of newscasts showing the devastation and desperation outside only helped to cement the illusion. And now the director was telling them all that was about to change. They would be expected to earn their keep and worse, failure to work would result in a failure to eat. He hadn’t exactly come right out and threatened to have them ejected, but many probably sensed it was not far off.
“What about those who can’t work?” a woman near the front row shouted. “I’m fifty-nine and on disability.”
A man close by joined the growing chorus. “My wife is wheelchair-bound with brittle bone disease. Will she be expected to work?”
Van Buren seemed to be prepared for this reaction. “Those with legitimate claims can make an appeal to be excluded. Remember, not every job need be strenuous. Even routing incoming calls or filing documents can be helpful. I will, however, offer a warning. Anyone of sound body or mind falsely claiming disability will be subject to the harshest penalty.”