by D. L. Orton
“That’s what I wanted to hear,” Madders says after I relay the message. “Tell him thanks.”
Ted nods and then returns to the other room.
“Can you stand by?” Matt says. “Lani wants to talk to you. I’m going to patch her through now.”
“Yes, of course,” I say, wondering what the hell she wants to say to me. The last time I spoke to her she nearly ate my face off.
We hear a couple of clicks and then a bit of static.
“Hello?” Lani says, her voice sounding far away. “Are you there, C-Bay?”
“Yes,” I say, shifting in my seat. “How are you, Dr. Kai?”
“I’m doing well, Diego. It’s good to hear your voice.”
I don’t know what to say to that.
She clears her throat. “I wanted to apologize for being so hard on you about Shannon. Madders told me what happened at Catersville, how you tried to fight back…”
“I’m just glad Kirk’s brought them to their senses,” I say. “And that Shannon will be home soon.”
“Yes, me too,” she says. “But that’s not why I wanted to talk to you.”
I glance at Soleil, but she shrugs.
I turn back to the microphone. “What’s up, Lani?”
“The, uh, machine is here,” she says. “The one that deposits people in trees. It’s in the contaminated area.”
“Mierda,” I say, my heart jumping into my throat.
Soleil gives me an inquisitive look but doesn’t comment.
“I know it’s a bit late for this,” Lani says, “but I believe you.”
I swallow. “Where are you now? Inside the mountain?”
“No,” Lani says. “I’m just outside the blast door. My signal isn’t powerful enough to get through all that rock. I’m going to hike up to the old radio tower as soon as I sign off. See if it’s still connected.”
“Have you tried resetting the circuit breaker in the machine room? It might just be stuck.”
“Yes, that was the first thing we tried.”
“Okay, right.”
“David Kirk will be out in a day or two to help,” Lani says. “And he’s bringing Shannon.”
“Yes, I heard,” I say, wrestling with my own annoyance that Dave gets to be the hero again. “That’s great news.”
“Is Soleil Nadales there with you?”
“Uh, yeah.” I scoot the mic over to Soleil.
“Hello, Dr. Kai,” Soleil says. “Congratulations on getting inside the mountain. I hear it was quite a feat.”
“Thank you, Dr. Nadales. Is your mother there as well?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Would you be able to send for her?”
“We did,” Soleil says. “But she’s… indisposed. Was there something you needed from her?”
“There’s someone who wants to talk to her,” Lani says. “Hang on…”
“We’re standing by,” Soleil says, asking with her eyes if I know what’s going on.
I shake my head.
The door behind us bursts open, and Bella stumbles in, her eyes red and swollen—and a bottle of whiskey in her hand.
“What is it?” she says, looking unsteady on her feet. “The nurse said it was an emergency!” She sees me and lets out a sob. “Why did you do it, James? Why did you abandon me? Didn’t you love me?”
Mierda.
I get up and help her over to the couch. “I loved her more than anything,” I say. “I still do.”
She’s so drunk, she can barely hold her own head up.
I’d never seen Isabel even a little bit tipsy—so I’m caught off guard when she throws her arms around my neck and says, “You should have told me. I would have gone with you.”
“Are you okay?” I finally manage.
She is clearly not okay, Captain America. She’s shit-faced drunk.
I put my arms around her, trying to think of something comforting to say. “Dr. Kirk… Bella, I…”
She turns to me, her mascara smeared and her nose running. “Oh, James.” She falls against me, kissing me on the mouth.
I take her shoulders, steadying her. “Bella, I’m not—”
“Mom, please!” Soleil says, wincing. “You’re embarrassing yourself.”
Before I can say anything, the radio crackles back to life.
“Hello?” a male voice says. “Soleil? This is Daddy. I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed you and Mommy.”
I hear Soleil’s audible intake of breath.
“Dad?” She scrambles for the microphone, but knocks it onto the floor and then dives to pick it up. “Daddy? Is that you?”
“Yes, it is, baby,” James says. “Boy, oh boy, is it good to hear your voice!”
“You’re alive,” Soleil whispers, her voice trembling with emotion. “Oh my God, you’re alive!”
“Yes, sweetie. I’m sorry, but I need to go,” he says. “As soon as we get the big radio inside working, I want to hear about everything that’s happened since I left. Everything. Okay, sunshine?”
“James?” Bella says, pushing me away. She attempts to stand, and when that doesn’t work, she collapses against me, sobbing and hiccuping.
“Okay,” Soleil says, tears running down her cheeks. “Daddy, is Lucas there with you?”
There’s a pause. “No, sweetie, he’s not.”
She wipes her face on her shoulder. “Where is he, Daddy?”
He sighs. “He’s gone, Sol. He wanted me to tell you and mommy that he loves you. I’m sorry.”
It takes her a moment to respond. “I’m sorry too, Daddy.”
“Is your mother there, Soleil?”
Soleil glances over at Bella who’s crumpled on the couch, unconscious. “No.”
“Okay.” We hear something bump the mic, and a few seconds later James says, “Is Diego around?”
“Yes,” Soleil says.
I untangle myself from Bella and step back to the microphone. “I’m here, James.”
“Take good care of them for me,” he says.
I put my hand on Soleil’s shoulder and lean over. “You got it, buddy.”
“And don’t trust a word that comes out of Kirk’s mouth,” James adds. “Not a fucking word.”
Soleil gasps.
“Yeah,” I say, meeting her startled gaze. “I already figured that out.”
“Good.” He clears his throat. “I have to go, Sol. Tell your mother I love her—and that I hope to talk to both of you again soon. I love you, sweetie, more than you could possibly know.”
“I love you too, Dad.”
The radio signal drops.
A few seconds later, Matt comes back on. “I gotta go, mates. See you on the other side. Kirk Biodome, over and out.”
30
Tell Him to Hurry
Lani
It turns out, James and Benny have been living in a labyrinth of hallways and conference rooms for over a decade.
James takes me into a giant storage area full of railcar-sized shipping containers. The ones in the front are open, and I can see cardboard boxes stacked inside.
“Those three are full of food,” James says, pointing to the shipping containers on the left. “And that one is full of bathrobes, pantyhose, and athletic socks.”
I walk over and take a quick look at the shipping containers. They’re nearly full of boxes the size of refrigerators. “Wow.”
“Those other two are full of coffee filters, toilet brushes, and other useless crap—although there is a fifty-pound bin of aspirin and some other over-the-counter meds too.”
“Do you have any prescription drugs or other hospital supplies?”
He shakes his head. “No idea. I’ve tried to get into the shipping containers behind these, but they’re stacked together like bricks, and even that empty one over there is too heavy for me to budge. And there are more crates and boxes downstairs… lots more, actually. But I haven’t been down there since before Lucas got sick.”
“What’s in the foo
d containers? Is most of it still good?”
“Almost none of it is spoiled, if that’s what you mean. But I wouldn’t call it gourmet dining. That first one’s full of Cheez Whiz and tuna fish. Second one’s mostly canned fruit cocktail and instant mashed potatoes. The third one’s got brownie mix and oatmeal, although I did find a couple barrels of corn flakes, and one of Lucky Charms.”
“Nice,” I say and laugh. “Haven’t had those in years.”
He rubs his chin. “Benny loved those marshmallows, but I ended up eating most of them myself. At one point I weighed nearly three hundred pounds.” He shifts his weight. “Come on, let me show you his playroom. It’s my masterpiece.”
We step into a conference room that’s packed full of PVC pipes at odd angles, all of them duct taped together. “Where’d you find all the tubes?”
“Took them out of the crawl spaces in all the rooms. They used to be full of phone cables and the like, but I figured we didn’t need them anymore.”
He sets Benny in one of the tubes, and the creature takes off running, obviously happy to be in his playroom.
I chuckle. “You clearly know how to make the little guy happy.”
He nods, not meeting my gaze, and then turns to leave. “Let me show you the rest. Benny’ll be fine in here for a while.”
I follow him out the door and close it behind me.
He takes me to an exercise room with hand weights and a stationary bicycle, a sleeping room with two metal couches pushed together, bathrobes tucked around the cushions, and a room full of board games.
There’s an elaborate card game on one table, a Scrabble game on another, and a chess game on a third.
“As you can see, I mostly play chess,” he says, “but I also like Yahtzee and Backgammon. My son loved Pokémon. We made cards and a game to go with them. I couldn’t bring myself to put them away.”
I walk over to the table of cards and pick up a handmade drawing of Pikachu, wondering how terrible it must have been to be alone inside here for so long.
“I always win,” he says with a straight face, and when I don’t respond, he frowns. “That was a joke.”
I nod, still lost in thought.
We stand there for a moment, staring at each other.
“I’m sorry,” I finally say. “It’s just that I can’t imagine what you’ve been through. How you could go on living for so long with no one to talk to and no one to be with…”
He swallows, his hands opening and closing at his sides.
“I’m glad it was you inside here, James. Really glad.” I walk over to him, looking up into his dark brown eyes, and then I put my hands on his chest and lean in on my tippy-toes to kiss him on the cheek. “Thanks for being here for me.”
He puts his arms around me, awkwardly at first, and then he pulls me against his chest—and I realize he’s crying.
He sniffs his nose and then takes my hand. “Come on, I need to show you the Control Room. If we have any chance of saving your friends, we’re gonna need to figure out how to get it working again.”
The Control Room looks like something out of a science fiction movie set in the 1970s, complete with reel-to-reel tapes, a computer the size of a refrigerator with only a handful of lights and toggle switches on the front, and a huge printer with green and white striped paper in it.
“Wow. This is right out of the dark ages.”
“This place was built in the fifties. Hard to believe it lasted this long, no?” He presses a button and one of the tiny screens comes to life. “That’s the inside of the airlock.” He turns a dial. “And that’s the view outside the blast door. Most of the other stuff in here I’ve never used.” He taps a button on a desk set into the wall, and a large, round dial lights up behind it. “That’s the radio, but it hasn’t worked since I got up here. I think maybe the antenna is broken.”
“But it has power,” I say.
“Yeah. That’s the backup system. Everything up on this level still has electricity, but the main generator that runs all the stuff downstairs has been off for years. I tried to figure out where the generator is located, and why it’s not working down there, but eventually gave up.”
“Any idea what’s in all those locked rooms we passed?” I ask.
“Mostly offices, I think, but to be honest, I don’t really know. I don’t have any passkeys, and I can’t cut the power to the doors without turning off the whole mountain.”
“Yikes. Where do you get water to drink?”
“From the taps in the bathrooms. I don’t have any idea where it comes from, but the toilets still flush, and there’s a shower in one of the bathrooms too.” He looks at me. “Did you need to use the bathroom? I’m sorry, I should have asked you sooner.”
I smile and shake my head. “I’m fine. What about cooking? Do you have a kitchen?”
“No, but there’s a break room with a coffee maker. I use it to heat water. Each coffee maker lasts about three years, and then I open a new one. Luckily, the cabinet is stocked full of them.”
“You do all your cooking on a coffee maker?”
“Yep. Tried a campfire once, but it made too much smoke. I got soaked.”
I laugh.
“I used to have a small microwave, but it gave out years ago. There’s also a Betamax VCR in the break room, but there weren’t many movies for it, and they’re all broken now. I kept trying to glue the tapes back together, but eventually I was putting patches on the patches.”
“Can you show me the underground city? Where all the labs and sleeping quarters are located?”
“Yeah, but you’d need a biosuit to go down there now. There’s a three-story hotel with beds for three hundred, plus staff quarters with rooms for a couple hundred more. And there’s an infirmary, a cafeteria, a gym, a barbershop, lots of labs and storage areas, and even a lake.”
“So it is an underground city.”
“Yep, complete with golf carts, fake stars, and a bowling alley. I can show you the access door and the elevator that takes you down, but like I said, the whole area is full of CO2. When the power went off, the air exchangers quit working, and within a year, the place was a death trap. That’s why Lucas and I had to move up here.”
I nod. “Do you still have any biosuits?”
“You wouldn’t be able to get through the access portal alone, and there’s only one suit. Believe me, Lucas and I looked for more.”
The image of the skull rolling down the mountainside fills my head. “I think I know where I can get another biosuit, although it’ll need new batteries, and we’ll have to come up with some way to test it.”
“You’ve come to the right place for that,” he says. “There’s a changing room right next to the airlock, and there are plenty of batteries and patches in there.”
“Okay then. I think we can save that part of the tour for later,” I say, “but I could sure use that cup of tea now.”
He smiles. “Coming right up. After that, I can prepare a room for you. It won’t be the Ritz, but it’ll be all yours.” He glances over at me. “You are going to stay, right?”
“My radio isn’t powerful enough to work in here. I need to go back Outside to let the Bub know what I’ve found.”
“But you’ll come back?”
“Of course I will.” I steal a peek at my watch. “It’s going to be getting dark soon, and with all the automatic guns out there, I may sleep in my tent tonight. But I’ll definitely be back in the morning when it’s light.”
“The automatic guns?”
“Yes, there’s some sort of defense system out on the concrete ledge—automatic rifles or something. Nearly got myself killed when I first got here.”
“Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t know what they did.” He walks over to a panel full of switches. “It says External Weapons System, but I didn’t want to turn it off for fear it would disable the blast doors or something.” He moves the toggle switch to OFF.
“External Weapons System disabled,” says the dise
mbodied computer voice. “Maintenance on the External Weapons System is overdue by seven thousand, four hundred and thirteen days. Shall I add External Weapons System maintenance to the duty roster?”
“Yes,” James says and shrugs. “How many items are on the duty roster?”
“Sixteen thousand, three hundred and thirty one. Would you like me to list them?”
I laugh.
“No,” he says.
We spend the next thirty minutes in the break room drinking hot tea and eating dried apples from my pack. He saves a few for Benny, and I promise to bring more. He asks me about the Bub, and everything that’s happened since it was sealed. I end up telling him about Shannon and how she was kidnapped on her way to C-Bay—and how I intend to go after her once all the folks from the Bub are safe.
“There’s a jeep in the storage area,” he says. “I don’t know if it still runs—or how you’ll find gas for it—but you’re welcome to take it. Might get you back to the Bub quicker than walking.”
I get up and hug him again. “Thank you, James.”
“I’m looking forward to meeting your daughter.”
After I use the bathroom, I go back out through the airlock and then the blast doors. There’s still enough light to see, but it’s freezing cold and there’s a slight breeze. I hurry back out the tunnel, along the wall, and through the safe passage across the ledge. When I get out of range of the guns, I find a tree branch and toss it back into the hot area, testing the automatic guns.
Nothing happens.
“Hallelujah.”
I follow my own footprints back to the tent and fire up the radio, anxious to share the good news.
The moment Madders says hello, I know something is wrong. His voice sounds a bit muffled.
“What is it?” I ask. “What’s happened?”
“Another section failed last night, and we couldn’t get the bulkhead sealed in time. We’re evacuating.”
“Is everyone okay?” I ask. “Did they get their masks on in time?”
“Yes, everyone is fine. We’re loading the last boxes into the trucks now.”
I tell him what I learned this afternoon.
“Well, mutt’s nuts, Lani, that’s the best news we’ve had in years,” he says, sounding downright giddy.