The Long Way Home

by Phoenix Hays

  “Good morning, Richard,” Patrick said.

  Richard shook his hand with a grunt and continued to scan the airport.

  Sensing the tension, Duke grabbed Patrick by the shoulder. “Patrick, this is Harry Stalk. He is our security manager for Memphis but has joined us for this trip to Site B.”

  “It’s nice to meet you,” Patrick said.

  Harry nodded, shaking his hand.

  Duke continued. “We don’t have any time to waste. We need to get to the site immediately!”

  He rushed the group over to a waiting car and SUV. The CEO invited Harry and the directors to take seats in the SUV. He motioned to Patrick, indicating they would be in the car.

  The car was a sedan nice enough for Duke’s tastes, but it had the look of a vehicle that had been overhauled. Armored panels were visible despite being painted the factory color. Tinted windows hid the interior of the vehicle. He walked around the car and got in the left rear passenger seat. Patrick got in on the other side. Richard was the last to get in, and he seated himself in the front passenger seat.

  “Buckle up,” Richard barked.

  As the third click confirmed that everyone had followed Richard’s direction, the car began to pull away from the plane behind them. Patrick’s eyes widened as he realized there was nobody in the driver’s seat. He looked at Duke, clearly dumbfounded.

  The CEO laughed. “Patrick, we are currently riding in one of Space Vision’s most successful concepts. This car has been designed with a sensory system and is being controlled by a program we created to self-navigate. We actually created these vehicles as spinoffs thanks to the research from our drone and satellite projects!” As he spoke, the car followed the gentle curve of the access road as it approached the intersection at the entrance of the airport. It stopped briefly, allowing a truck to drive by and then turned right onto State Route 36.

  A grunt came from the front seat. Richard again.

  Duke leaned forward and grabbed his security chief by the shoulder. “Richard thinks we are moving too fast. Taking too many risks. I’m forced to remind him — “

  “That science is taking risks,” Patrick finished.

  “Exactly,” Duke said, chuckling as he leaned back into his seat. “Sometimes I forget you are in so many of our video conferences. Everything we do now is based around our new mission and sometimes the timetable is forced on us.”

  “You mean by the Fatalists? Have they started disrupting our projects?”

  “Them...” Duke rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. “You know that the biggest disservice the media has done through all this has been legitimizing them by giving them a name and making them sound like some organized group. All it has done is emboldened the fanatics who believe we should all be happy to die from the Oppenheimer String. I, however, believe that necessity is the mother of invention. I will prove that this company is up to the challenge and our cause is just.”

  Patrick nodded in partial understanding and agreement. He felt his stomach drop a bit and looked out the window to see the horizon slowly lowering. Grass and rocks on the side of the road shrank as the car gained altitude.

  “Duke, what is—” He began to speak and stopped as he realized that the car was actually flying. The vehicle made a slight turn as it swung away from the road and started passing over the field to the right.

  Duke continued: “No, they’ve not had a direct impact on us. Thanks to Richard, the few issues we have had are now little more than annoyances. But we can’t rest and assume it will continue that way. As they get more and more desperate to stop efforts like ours, they will take more extreme measures. And as you can see with our current transportation, we are advancing our technology to meet the challenges in front of us.”

  “But won’t moving to Site B so early make people want to search for us?”

  “That’s what I like about you, Patrick. You are very forward thinking. I thought of that, and that’s exactly why we were so specific in our directions on what to bring to Site B. As we speak, a few teams of recently hired Space Vision employees are moving into the Memphis office. The Space Vision offices will continue to be quite active from the public’s point of view.”

  “Duke, you can’t use people as decoys.”

  “Not at all! Although we are moving our top-level projects to Abilene, we have identified some new lower-level efforts that are needed and can afford to be in Memphis. This is also to drive a little positive PR and inject some hope into the community. There are a lot of companies cutting jobs and shutting down. The economy has tanked in the Midwest since Oppenheimer became public knowledge.”

  Duke looked over Patrick’s shoulder. His seriousness was replaced with wide eyes and a boyish smile. “We’re here, old friend!”

  Patrick turned to see that both vehicles were gliding down to a rolling landing on a two-lane road.

  “Here? Where?” Patrick wondered aloud.

  A few hundred feet ahead and to the right was a wide-open field surrounded by a 20-foot-tall fence. The fence was topped with barbwire and stretched out as far as the eye could see. The cars passed quite a bit of fence, finally slowed and turned right into a gap in it. Both vehicles passed a manned checkpoint, and a reinforced gate in front of them opened. The vehicles glided forward and the gate closed behind them.

  “Duke, we didn’t stop for security?”

  “My friend, our driver-less cars are carrying transponders that Space Vision tracks at all times. Security clears us before we even arrive. Believe me, if we weren’t cleared, we wouldn’t have made it this far.”

  Patrick swiveled his head. The field was unremarkable aside from patches of tall grass. There was nothing to look at beyond the imposing fence and checkpoint. Nothing.

  The car moved forward to its invisible destination. Patrick again looked to Duke.

  Is he fighting back a smile? Duke is enjoying my confusion.

  He leaned forward as he saw a building in the distance. It appeared to be a construction trailer; just a small rectangle on the horizon.

  “How can Space Vision work from here?” Patrick asked.

  Pulling up to the trailer, the vehicles stopped in the round about in front of it. Everyone disembarked, and Duke ushered the group toward the trailer. Compared to the high-tech offices that filled the skyscraper shining in the Memphis sun, it was a joke in terms of Space Vision’s prestige. The shack standing in front of them looked like it hadn’t been occupied in decades and leaned slightly to the left. Dust and dirt covered the door and the cracked windows. Patches of rust pockmarked the metal roof and a panel from the right side’s wall had fallen off and was leaning against the building. A tumbleweed rolled past the front door as the wind kicked up. Patrick looked over to Duke, crossed his arms and tilted his head. His mouth curved into a smirk.

  Duke looked back and smiled. “I didn’t do that, old friend!”

  The sign over the door read “Site B.” Duke stepped forward and waved his pass key over the door lock.

  “Come in, everyone. We’ve got no time to lose.” The CEO opened the door and beckoned everyone inside. He stood to the side to let everyone else in.

  Patrick’s jaw dropped when he walked inside.

  The interior of the shack was pristine — almost clinical. A faint smell of cleaning chemicals hung in the air and the tile floor shined in the light from outside. Stainless steel walls framed the room. The only furniture was a desk facing the door from the middle of the opposite wall. A small monitor sat in front of a pad of paper and a pencil. All three appeared to be placed purposefully, and all edges were in line with each other.

  Typical of Space Vision, even the seemingly meaningless details are taken care of and in order, Patrick thought.

  Richard moved past the others and approached the back wall behind the desk. He stood there for a second as Patrick tried to figure out what he was looking at. There was nothing of note on it. The security chief waved his badge at a portion of wall above his head, and the seams o
f a door appeared as it slid out of the way, revealing a small room beyond it. Patrick heard a chuckle and looked over at Duke. Duke patted Patrick on the back and walked through the doorway.

  “What is this place?” Patrick asked.

  “Come on, old friend, I’ve got a lot to show you!”

  Clarence and the other directors stepped inside, and the door slid closed. A moment passed, and the familiar feeling of descent grew in Patrick’s stomach. There was no sound or window to confirm it, but he knew this had to be an elevator. The heaviness of deceleration warned that they were nearing the end of the trip downward.

  Richard slipped past the door before it finished opening and strode out into a hallway that matched the inside of the shack high above them. He turned to the right and disappeared into a room with a plaque on the door that read “Security” in stamped lettering. Across the hall from that door was a reception desk where a young woman was speaking to someone on the phone. Duke walked up to her, and she handed him a champagne bottle without missing a word in her conversation. She nodded and smiled at Patrick, clearly recognizing him.

  Duke tore the foil over the cork and pressed his thumb against it. The pop echoed in the hall as the cork bounced off the far wall. “Welcome to Site B, everyone!” Duke said, smiling. He poured champagne into the glasses sitting at the edge of the reception desk. Duke walked up to Patrick and handed him a glass. He turned to face everyone, raised his own glass, and said, “To success in our work here.”

  “Here, here,” the group responded.

  “Please follow me, everyone,” Duke said. He walked down the hall toward a door just past the reception desk. He opened the door and ushered everyone through. Patrick’s eyes went wide. Gone was the sterile look of stainless steel from the hallway behind them. Stretching out ahead were a series of work stations and offices on the left. An extra-large conference room extended into the wall on the right. It fit Space Vision’s usual look except the room appeared to be carved out from rocky dirt. The walls were unfinished and unevenly cut. Rocks, dirt, and clay created a striking contrast against the technology installed in the room.

  The group strolled deeper into the complex. Other than the empty conference room, the place buzzed with activity. There were teams of people working in low-walled cubicle stations as well as staff members at individual desks, focused on their monitors. One by one, the directors peeled off and joined discussions with various groups. A few people acknowledged Duke and Patrick with warm greetings as they covered the distance to the set of doors at the end of the hall.

  Duke waved his ID card and the doors slid open to reveal what could only be described as a massive gymnasium. The room extended for hundreds of feet in all directions. A handful of people played basketball to the left. On the right was a makeshift exercise room where people used weight lifting equipment and watched monitors that played movies, news, and other TV shows.

  “Duke, this is amazing.”

  “Patrick, we really had to go all out on this. I wanted to make sure we took care of the very human needs of continuing ‘normal life’ as we work on some of the highest-pressure projects our company has ever faced.”

  “I’m just in awe. When did you do all this?”

  “We’ve always had a need for a place like this. In the past, we knew we needed protection from corporate or international espionage. Hell,” Duke said with a laugh, “I always knew that NASA had their eyes on us. Now that we have terrorists threatening the very lives of our staff, Site B became a priority in the past year.”

  “Wait, the past year?” Patrick stopped almost directly in the middle of the gymnasium. “Oppenheimer was only discovered, what? Two months ago?”

  Duke stopped and turned to him. “My friend, Oppenheimer was announced to the public five weeks ago. Our teams have been tracking this situation for nearly 10 months. That’s why we’ve been so hard at work to create this ‘Ascent to Sanctuary’ project.”

  “Sanctuary? Are you creating a safe place for people underground? Do you think we can survive down here?

  “I’ll explain everything soon, Patrick.” Duke handed him a new company ID card. “This is for your living quarters. Our relocation team has already moved most of your belongings. If you find that we have missed something, please say so. We will make it right. You’re in sub-level 6, apartment 20. Come back to the gym when you are ready to see the rest of the project. I’m glad you are here, old friend.”

  With that, Duke shook his hand, turned and walked away. Patrick was left there alone, his mind spinning. His eyes searched the expansive gym and came to rest on a sign that read “Living Quarters” on the far wall. He crossed the gym as he headed toward the set of doors below it. He half expected the doors to open automatically, but they didn’t. Moving closer, Patrick now stood an uncomfortably close distance from the doors. Still nothing. He stood there for another second before he remembered what he saw earlier in the trailer above ground. He raised his hand with the ID card and waved it above the door. Still nothing. He looked around and saw a key lock to the right of the door.

  Could it be like the lock on the outside of the trailer office?

  He waved his ID card over the lock and the doors slid open.

  Patrick walked out onto a balcony that overlooked a cavernous beehive of pods with an over-sized window in the middle of each one. Some of the windows were dark, but many glowed from light coming from inside. Most of the lit windows were opaque. The ones that he could see through revealed tables, couches and other various furniture as well as TVs.

  “These are apartments,” he said. “Unreal.”

  In front of him was a three-inch-thick security wall made of glass and framed by metal supports. A stream of lights along the wall led his eyes to the left. At the edge of the balcony was a small room with an open door. He stepped inside it, and the door closed behind him. He held his card over the sensor block, and he felt the room move away from the vast chamber for a moment. It came to a stop and a downward pointing arrow gently glowed on the wall in front of him. The sensation of moving down passed over him again. A series of arrows and movements later, the room stopped and another door opened, revealing an apartment.

  “Wow,” said Patrick, walking inside.

  He looked around the room and immediately recognized the furniture. Every piece of furniture was from his condo back in Memphis. Patrick raised a hand to the side of his head. In awe of the undertaking that Duke had done to recreate his condo, he walked through the room and into a small kitchen. Compact, stainless steel appliances sat waiting to be put to use. He noted the motion sensitive faucet above the under-mount sink sitting in the middle of what appeared to be a granite counter top. Patrick turned a corner and walked into the bedroom. A burgundy comforter covered the bed sitting against the wall on the right. A bronze lamp with a dark red shade sat on the nightstand next to it. On the opposite wall, the TV came to life and a message started scrolling across.

  “Welcome home,” he read aloud. “Indeed, Duke. Now you are just showing off.”

  The man walked around the bed to a dark screen on the far wall. There were no buttons or dials. The edges of the panel seamlessly aligned with the wall. He reached up to touch it, and, as his index finger brushed the surface, the screen shimmered and changed to a blurry image of what appeared to be the catacomb of apartments he saw before. He touched the panel again and the fogginess dissolved to a crystal-clear image of the pods beyond. He realized he was in one of those same pods. He looked across the chasm and saw a child looking out of one window. The child waved to Patrick. Patrick smiled and waved back. He turned and headed back to the living room, waved his card at the door, and after a short wait, the transport room returned to take him back to the gym.

  Patrick walked through the gym, scanning for Duke, but he wasn’t there. He continued back to the reception desk. The young woman was on the phone again, so he waited patiently.

  “Hello, old friend!” The unmistakable voice of Duke boomed from down
the hall. Patrick turned toward the man and saw him exiting a door beyond the elevator they arrived in. “Did you find your accommodations up to par?”

  “The apartment is great, but the view is breathtaking.”

  “Our engineers have really outdone themselves. I’ve worked hard to make sure every single person helping to make this effort succeed has some comfort of home.”

  “I’ll be honest. I haven’t been able to figure out what that effort really was until now. The directors and their projects all make sense now in this creation. Long-term survival while enclosed underground would demand all the R&D that you’ve been doing.”

  “Patrick, what you’ve seen so far is only the half of it. Come with me.” With that, the CEO turned and waved his card at the lock next to the door he just left. The two men walked through the door.

  Patrick’s jaw dropped again.

  The walkway opened up to a massive round room. Space Vision staff in white lab coats were all over the place. Many were in work stations deep in discussions and their combined voices created a white noise in the room. He tried to listen to the closest group and couldn’t follow their references to ‘TLO’, ‘pressure force’ or ‘burn time.’ Three conference rooms were spaced perfectly around the perimeter. Curved glass walls gave away whether they were being used or not.

  Patrick’s eyes moved from the exterior of the room to the ceiling. There was a gaping hole in it that was almost the size of the room itself. He looked to the floor to find it had the same size hole with a guardrail running around it. He stepped forward and peered into the void. The slightest amount of light shined past the edge revealing a gently sloped cone in the center. Whatever it was attached to extended down into the dark below.

  “Duke... is this a...?”

  “I have to go, old friend. I have an update to give on the Carol Wilcox Show. Clarence will give you a full tour of the ATS Project.” He nodded to his director at a nearby table.