She cast a glance toward the one door of the room, then around the large library itself, and leaned closer to me. When that didn’t put her close enough, she scooted her armchair closer to mine, and then leaned forward again, until her lips were nearly touching my ear.
“You look like a woman who knows exactly what she wants, and isn’t afraid to go after it, am I right?” she breathed, her breath brushing against the edge of my ear.
I shivered, at both that breath and those words. Yes, that description felt right. Or, at least, it had at one time. Was that still who I was? Was I still that girl who went after exactly what she wanted, consequences be damned? Was I brave enough to still try that, when I knew what had happened above ground?
Yes, I decided. Yes, I was that girl. And yes, I was absolutely willing to go after what I wanted. Because the longer I was down here, the itchier I was getting.
“You’ve got that exactly right,” I returned, my voice barely audible.
I heard the breath of a sigh of relief—or laughter—from Simone, and felt her relax next to me.
“I’m also guessing—and I don’t think I’m wrong on this—that you aren’t here by choice, and that you have no intention of staying. Correct?”
“I just don’t see how I have much choice, at this point,” I observed. “No, I’m not here on purpose. No, I don’t want to stay. But when the world above us is actually poisoned—”
“Only for now,” she interrupted.
At that, I turned to face her, letting all my questions run right across my face.
“Only for now? What exactly is that supposed to mean?”
She pressed her lips together and narrowed her eyes, and I would have thought she was annoyed with me, except that I’d felt that exact same expression on my face—when I had to break anything technological down into simpler terminology, to explain it to people who didn’t know as much about my area of expertise as I did.
Right, I realized. Scientist. She’s dumbing down the language to give me a prayer at understanding what she’s about to tell me.
“Every radioactive—that means radiating poison, more or less—material has what’s called a half-life. That means, for lack of a better explanation, that it has a certain amount of time when it remains… let’s say, toxic. After that, the radioactivity has decayed, and though the material might still exist, and might still be really nasty, it’s no longer… well, poisonous. It degrades until it’s just non-radioactive material.”
I took a beat to process what she was saying. Sure, I’d heard the term “half-life” before. I’d taken your standard physics and chemistry classes in high school. That didn’t mean I’d ever understood what it meant. But if what she was saying was true…
“You’re saying the radioactivity essentially destroys itself after a certain amount of time?” I asked. “Like an inevitable self-destruct button?”
She grinned and gave me a quick nod. “That’s more or less the idea, yes.”
But that didn’t explain anything about what we were seeing up top. Because as far as I knew, we weren’t having a nuclear winter.
“But VXM is—”
“A chemical weapon that relies on much the same principal,” she interrupted. “No, it isn’t radioactive. It wouldn’t have been possible for them to disseminate it the way they did if it was radioactive material. But I know the chemical makeup of that material, and it has a half-life that reacts in essentially the same way.”
Right. Okay. Way, way above my head, here, but I was going to go ahead and assume that she did, in fact, know what she was talking about. She sure didn’t look like she was making this up as she went. And she had to have worked as a scientist for the government for a reason, right?
“And that means that after a certain period of time, it will be safe up top,” I guessed. “You’re saying that if we wanted to escape this place, try to make our way back up there and… I don’t know, see what’s left of the world, maybe even help the survivors, that we might be able to do it?”
She gave me a jerky nod, her face transforming just a bit from doom and gloom to a glimmer of hope. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
Okay. Sure. So if I was willing to believe that…
“How long?” I asked, getting right to the point.
I’d known my uncle for most of my life, and what I’d seen of him over the last few days was unlike anything I’d ever experienced from him before. He didn’t act like a sane or healthy person. This was beyond eccentric or a little kooky. He was out of his goddamn mind. And no matter how much I loved him, I had absolutely no intention of staying down here with his crazy ass any longer than I had to.
“What are you two whispering about?” a voice suddenly boomed from the doorway.
I jerked away from Simone and whirled in my chair toward the doorway, my heart hammering away in my chest. What the hell? What were people doing, sneaking around like that?
To my horror, I saw the very man I’d been thinking of—backed up by his friend Bob, who was hulking behind him like a cartoonish henchman. My uncle’s face was half-smiling, and though I could see that he was making an effort to joke about having found Simone and me in the library, whispering, I could also see that he was faking that smile.
He thought something was going on here. Maybe because of the way we’d been huddled together, obviously discussing something that we didn’t want anyone else to hear.
Dammit, I hadn’t come down here with "How to Deal with an Uncle who is Possibly Losing his Mind and has a Bunch of People Locked in his Secret Underground Bunker: for Dummies." Should I make a joke? Or tell him straight out what we were thinking?
If I did tell him, would he believe me? Or would he fly totally and completely off the handle?
I realized it wasn’t worth the risk.
“We’re scared,” I admitted, telling at least part of the truth. “That… that whole thing was pretty frightening, Uncle Jeff.” I gestured vaguely toward the electronics room, indicating what we’d just seen, and saw his eyes go soft again.
I breathed out a quick sigh of relief. Right, crisis averted, then. For now.
“And you don’t want anyone to know that you were frightened,” he added, walking into the room with his arms spread. “Come to me, Michelle. You know I’ll never let anything happen to you.”
I rose and walked to him for the hug that might have actually given me some comfort a week ago. A hug that would have felt like safety when I was seven years old—but now felt like I might actually be dancing with the devil.
“I will protect you,” he said into my ear, with a final squeeze. “You just need to trust me.” He pulled back and stared into my eyes, and for a moment, I was that seven-year-old again and he was my entire world, and all I wanted was to believe him. To let him make it better.
To let him make the decisions and protect us.
But then I came screeching back to my senses, and I took a step back, giving him a slight grin.
“I trust you,” I said quietly.
He jerked a nod, and his eyes went to Simone. “We’re on our way into the garden to do some work on the mature crops. I suggest you both join us. It’ll be better if you keep your minds off of what just happened.”
He turned without another word and strode from the room, as if this was the most natural thing in the world. I watched him go, shocked and dismayed at how easily he was writing the death of potentially millions of people off like it didn’t matter.
Going to play in his garden. Like this was just another day of fun in the bunker.
After he’d left, I turned to Simone again, my eyes wide with surprise.
She was already on her feet and walking toward the door.
“One week,” she whispered as she passed me. “One week until the self-destruct button goes off. After that, it’ll be time.”
I followed after her. “Roger that. I suggest we keep our mouths shut, though, until we know what we’re going to do about it.”
&
nbsp; Simone and I might be in agreement about getting the hell out of that bunker, but that didn’t necessarily mean the others would be in agreement with us. And I wasn’t ready to find out what they’d do to keep us from acting on the information we had.
Chapter 11
That night at dinner, I started to get a very good idea of exactly how difficult the others would make our lives if we spoke out about what we knew, and what we wanted to do.
“Personally, I think we’re better off down here, regardless,” Bob said, leaning over toward my uncle as if his words were for him only. “The over-ground was nothing but trouble, anyway. Can’t say I’m overly sorry that most of those people are gone.”
I stared at him, too shocked to really formulate an answer. Sure, I’d had my fair share of trouble with the people up top—particularly when it came to the law enforcement folks. But I would never in a million years have said that I was relieved they were dead.
He couldn’t be serious. Surely, he was just trying to play favorites with Jeff. Playing some sort of political game that I didn’t know the rules to. Yet.
“You know, Bob, I have to disagree, just a bit,” Oliver said. “I think it’s a tragedy that so many people have lost their lives. A tragedy of truly global proportions. And so preventable. Someone must have heard something. Someone must have known that something like this was coming. Our government should have had plans in place to protect its people, plain and simple.”
My uncle’s face contorted into anger. “The government has never been good for anything, Oliver, and you know that as well as I do. You’d have to be a fool to expect them to have protected the people.”
My eyes flew from one to the other of them, aghast. They were actually sitting there discussing this like they were talking about what sort of new seeds to plant in the garden!
I suspected that millions of people had died today. And I couldn’t be the only one who thought that. But the men of the bunker were acting like nothing major had even happened.
I straightened up, thinking that I absolutely had to say something, but then I remembered what I’d told Simone earlier. I didn’t have a very secure position here. Sure, I was the niece of the guy who’d built the whole place and was now effectively acting as its king, but I didn’t have any really usable skills. Simone was a scientist. Jeff was a genius gardener and doomsday prepper—I had to give him that. Bob did construction, and Oliver was a doctor.
I wasn’t going to save anyone’s life with hacking.
And that meant that if it came down to it, I was the one who was disposable here. The one who could quite easily be voted off the island, so to speak. I didn’t know whether Uncle Jeff would let them get rid of me, if the time came—but I thought it would be better not to find out. I had to watch my step.
I shut my mouth and leaned back in my chair, breathing out firmly through my nose. Keep your mouth shut, girl, just keep your mouth shut, I told myself.
Yeah, I wanted to argue with them. Yeah, I wanted to shout them down and tell them how wrong they were. I wanted to force them to admit that they were being blind and inhuman. I’d made an entire career of wanting to be right. Wanting to know what I was talking about and proving that I was more adept at it than anyone else.
Right now, I had to shut that part of myself down. My life might actually depend on it. It didn’t take much to imagine the others getting angry and ‘voting’ me out completely. And I couldn’t afford for that to happen—well, until a week from now.
Once the VXM had reached its half-life and died down, or whatever it was that happened, they could vote me right out, and I’d go away singing and clapping. Until then, I had to do the one thing that was absolutely unnatural to me: Keep my mouth shut and my head down.
One glance at Simone and I saw her face reflecting that same conclusion right back at me. The corner of her lip twitched in a smile and I gave her the ghost of a nod. The three men could play politics and curry favor with each other as much as they wanted to. As long as they left us alone, we’d leave them alone.
With luck, they wouldn’t even know we were planning to leave until we were gone.
My thoughts were broken by my uncle abruptly clapping his hands.
“Now,” he said sharply. “As long as we’re down here for the long-run, it’s time to talk about some rules.”
“Rules?” I asked, surprised. What rules did we need except those that would guarantee our survival?
He gave me a nod.
“As the leader of this particular pack, I’m putting myself in charge of making those rules,” he continued. “I didn’t have anything specific written down before we came down here. I wanted to see how we all got on, first, and wanted to make sure we made it through whatever attack might come. Now, my friends, the time has come.”
I took another deep breath. Taking orders was one other thing I wasn’t very good at. And I could see the mania in Uncle Jeff’s eyes growing. I didn’t like the direction we were heading, here.
“We have cleaning to do every day, in both the residential area and the public areas,” he continued. “Housekeeping duties will be assigned to everyone every morning, as well as gardening duties and guard duties.”
“Guard duties?” I asked, confused. “Aren’t we locked in down here?”
“Listening to the radios,” he said, casting me a glance that indicated how little he currently thought of my intelligence. “Someone must be in the electronics room at all times, listening for movement up top. I want someone in the garden every day, checking on the plants. Someone in the kitchen, as well, to make sure we’re in good shape with the food and water and cooking, of course. If we start to run low on something, I need to know about it immediately so I can make arrangements. Those are the things that are going to keep us alive, people.”
He clapped again, sharply, and I wondered if he’d considered bringing a whistle down here to use to lead our little "pack" with. Yeah, I was nervous about the way he was acting—but right now, in this moment, I was still able to make a joke of it. Still able to see the humor in him trying to act like a drill sergeant.
Then, he turned to me, his eyes going into that dark place again.
“And let me assure you, team, that we won’t tolerate any insubordination here. I’ll assign chores every morning, and I’ll be putting up a list of rules in the common area tomorrow morning. Anyone found breaking the rules will be punished. I can’t afford for any of you to get out of line. None of us can. For those of you who have spent their lives breaking rules, let me say…” He narrowed his eyes at me, his intention unmistakable. “You won’t enjoy the repercussions. The FBI has nothing on me. They don’t hold your lives in their hands. I do.”
I sealed my mouth shut, my heart somewhere in my stomach.
Okay, then. All the humor I’d been seeing in the situation flew right out the window. This was no laughing matter.
It wasn’t even close.
I sat in the electronics room, my eyes on the row of radios in front of me, my heart pounding so hard I didn’t know whether I’d be able to hear anything anyhow.
Outside of the room, my uncle and Oliver were taking part in an all-out yelling match about the food restrictions my uncle had chosen to put on us that morning. Evidently, he’d had a look at our supply room and decided that it might not last as long as he’d thought it would. I mean… it was surprising, considering he’d supposedly been planning for this. And he’d been so confident about the whole thing when we'd first gotten down here.
Now, it seemed that the plants wouldn’t grow as fast as he’d thought they would or wouldn’t produce fruit as quickly as he’d hoped they would. Either that, or he was just making things up, creating problems so he could solve them. Regardless, it had led to food rationing, and Oliver had immediately started shouting about it.
Thank God I’d been assigned to the electronics room. Thank God I had the computers to keep me company—and keep me busy. Thank God I wasn’t the one who’d pissed Jeff
off.
Because I wanted to get the hell out of there. But I didn’t want to do it until I was ready. And I definitely wasn’t prepared to go head-to-head with my uncle, who seemed to be getting crazier by the moment. That said, I also didn’t want to stay down here as he continued to descend toward whatever destination he had in mind.
I tried to focus on the radios in front of me, leaning forward to turn up the volume and listen—in vain—for voices on the other end. I knew I wouldn’t hear anything. Everyone was gone. But it was my job to at least listen. And as long as I was here…
I turned back to the keyboard and monitor in front of me and went back to typing. I needed to get onto the dark web—or any sort of web, really. I needed to see whether there was still anyone up there to talk to. And whether they knew what had happened to the rest of the world.
Chapter 12
That afternoon, much to my dismay, I found myself in the garden with the very man I’d been trying to avoid. My uncle was moving down the row of new seedlings, leaving the more mature plants to me. I had a basket hanging in front of me and was going from plant to plant, picking tomatoes, beans, peppers, cucumbers, and whatever else I came across. At the end of the row, I hit the larger plants and the ones that required underground growing. This was where we had squash, carrots, potatoes, and the like. I combed through the corn stalks, looking for any cobs that appeared to be ripe.
Understand, this was not my specialty. This wasn’t even something I was remotely experienced with. Yeah, I’d helped my uncle with his garden when I was younger. But I’d been following orders, not thinking for myself. I’d held the hose on the plants he wanted watered and picked the fruit and vegetables he’d pointed out to me. I’d been a kid.
I hadn’t touched a plant since then. I’d turned to electronics, and I hadn’t looked back.
This garden was also completely unlike the garden Jeff had in the backyard of his house. He hadn’t exactly wanted to tote hundreds of bags of soil down here, and even if he had, I didn’t know how long that would have lasted. We didn’t exactly have the option to refresh it once a year the way I assumed you had to do with any standard garden, or add fertilizer.
Survival of The Fittest | Book 1 | The Fall Page 7