Kimber

by L K Hingey

  Chapter XVIII

  When dawn broke over the horizon, Tristan was already awake. He had slept deeply and had also dreamt deeply. His subconscious had been stuck all night on the scenario of Kimber being trapped in the basement. In his slumber, he had battled doors that would not open and had even let Kimber slip through his fingers when she jumped off the ladder. Needless to say, he was in no rush to fall back asleep, and he prayed that Kimber was sleeping too deeply to dream.

  He watched the pale light spill over the windowsill. It slowly crept over to the bed and lit up Kimber’s scales. He did not need to get up to see the sunrise because he was watching it right here. She had turned to face away in her sleep but had scooted her body close to his. She was taking up way more than half of the bed, but Tristan didn’t mind. He liked being there to protect her as she slept.

  Tristan knew he had to get a jump on finding supplies if he wanted to be back before Kimber woke up. With a low grumble, he carefully slipped out from the covers. He stretched nice and tall in the growing light and yawned while looking around. The briefcase and the overstuffed bag were still laying on the table near the flashlight. Tristan walked over and tucked it into his belt as soundlessly as he could, fighting the urge to break out the stacks of papers. His stomach was growling, and he wanted to surprise Kimber with breakfast.

  He opened the deadbolt so he would not be locked out of the room and silently stole into the hallway. He hurried into the stairwell and bound down the steps, knowing exactly where he was headed from the map he studied in the visitor’s center. One thing that Tristan had always excelled at was directional orientation. Growing up in the cave systems had made him keen on remembering turns and recognizing landmarks, big or small.

  He settled into a light jog and tried to stretch his tight body as he ran. The Auroreans had partaken in physical training their whole lives, but before yesterday, Tristan had never spent an entire day pushing, pulling, lifting, and smashing things. He rolled his neck and shoulders and massaged his arms, encouraging the blood to flow. As he ran, he took in the pale morning. Everything was calm and a tranquil quality hung over the base.

  Tristan ran past several buildings and fields until he found his destination. Cars were parked chaotically all over the parking lot beside dozens of tipped over shopping carts. Giant letters hung above the commissary, some of which had fallen off in the many years of neglect. That was not the worst damage the fort’s grocery store had sustained though, and Tristan looked in mild surprise at the wall of broken windows. By the looks of it, the place had been looted. There were always leftovers though, and pulling the flashlight out, he walked through one of the shattered windows.

  Wasting no time dawdling, Tristan went straight to the canned goods. He looked down and smiled at the assortment of rejected cans. There were beans, a few dented cans of chili, mixed vegetables, a can of pears, a jar of maraschino cherries, and a few cans of spam. How spam had made it into the 2100’s he had no idea, but he knew Kimber would love it. He quickly realized he had no way to carry the food, and since he had an additional stop planned, he didn’t feel like toting everything around in his arms. He doubled back to the checkout lanes and scavenged for a bag.

  He found a couple reusable bags under one of the self-service teller stations. Currency had been 100% digital for almost a century before the flare, so the checkout counters were bare and uncluttered. Underneath, however, they were usually chock full of cleaning supplies, knickknacks, and things like bags. The concept of money had been taught to the Inannians, but in a community so small, and with every citizen contributing max effort, money was useless. The only real understanding of currency they had, had come in the form of trading.

  After Tristan dumped a pile of canned goods and an extra bag into the new sack, he hurried out of the store. The bag was awkward and heavy, but he made his way as quickly as he could towards the visitor’s center. He passed the same buildings and fields as he had earlier, this time taking in more of the scene around him as he hustled across the fort. It looked much like a normal town, except more spread out, with the occasion statue, tank, or helicopter on display.

  When he arrived at the welcome center, he went right in and started to search. The place was a cross between an informational gathering place and a museum. There was a large help desk, tables with high tech computer monitors, and a coffee bar in one of the corners. On the other side of the room was a maze of glass cases housing military relics, historic uniforms, flags, and posters about the various wars that Fort Knox had played a role in.

  Near each glass case was an informational placard describing the contents on display. There were also a dozen or so digital screens, tall and slender, mixed in amongst the artifacts and placards. The screens were blank of course, leaving Tristan wishing he could have seen the information, images, or movies that were contained on them. He wondered how differently Fort Knox told history from the educators in Inanna.

  More than anything else, Tristan had always been skeptical about his education concerning the most recent war, The Last World War. He could not grasp why and how all that nuclear destruction had been unleashed. He walked over to the maze of displays regarding this era, which had technically started in 2077 when Elyria was spotted by the Hubble V telescope. Once the rogue planet was identified, it only took a matter of days for every computer simulation on the planet to be run, all of which projected impact.

  Dozens of satellites were launched into the heavens, rigged with advanced detection equipment to cross-examine Elyria’s path. The results that came back confirmed what was already known and had calibrated the estimated date of impact. Early in the year 2078, the United States announced to the world that in 34 years, Elyria would make impact with the sun. Since Elyria had once belonged to a much bigger star than the sun, she was larger than any of the planets in the Milky Way. Astronomers could only guess what would happen upon impact. All they knew for sure, was that Elyria was over 100 times the size of Jupiter.

  The world went crazy after the time to impact went public. That was the best way Tristan could rationalize it. They just went plumb crazy. Governments started attacking smaller nations, invading them to assume resources, land, and power. It was as if the world had been thrown back into the Dark Ages. For years, the United States, along with its dwindling array of ally nations, tried to maintain a policy of isolationism regarding the many proxy wars, but a few years later they too, were pulled into the chaos.

  The attacks on her four largest nuclear power plants had brought America to her knees. President Candace Cornwall mournfully addressed a shaken nation, with a pain that resonated with the emotion of President Roosevelt’s infamous speech of 1941, launching the U.S. headfirst into war. Fuel, food, and the controversies over genetic alteration and cloning were all anyone could think about. Punches were delivered back and forth between the world’s superpowers until Elyria entered the gravitational pull of the sun. Then, through black and blue eyes, the humans of the world gazed upwards, waiting to see what would happen.

  Tristan had always found this time in history particularly interesting. Not that he had a stomach for destruction, but because he enjoyed evaluating people’s psyches. He had always found it fascinating to dissect why people do and feel things. So much so, that he spent much of his time researching how the mind processes the stimuli around it. Before today, he had honestly never known true fear or true desperation. It put a whole new spin on how he viewed the brain’s operation under duress.

  The feeling of panic, the need to protect something dear to him, and the realization that he could not control many of the variables that would lead to an eventual outcome, had been a despairing, but enlightening, experience. Although it was not one that he was eager to ever repeat, it did shed some light on society’s frame of mind as the world spun in place waiting for Armageddon. He could better understand the chaos behind their actions now. They were only trying to protect what was most important to them. He gazed at the cases of artifacts wi
th wiser, sadder eyes.

  He read some of the placards, looking over timelines and personal accounts written about the events that unfolded in those fateful 35 years. He would have liked to stay in the museum all day, ingesting the histories on display, but he knew he had to be getting back. He hands were starting to shake, which was his personal indication that he really needed to get calories into his body. And Kimber’s, he thought, speeding up.

  At the end of the maze was a section under a fancy sign. “Fort Knox Today,” Tristan read to himself. The area was cheery and served as an ode to the seventy-seven years of peace following the war. Tristan hunted around, and in one of the cases he found exactly what he had been hoping for: A magazine featuring the United States Bullion Depository was propped up on top of an original 1930’s newspaper. It was heralding the opening of the depository and featured a black and white photo from when the vault was first built.

  Nearby on the glass shelves was a granite keychain laser cut to the exact dimensions of the vault. It was a perfectly scaled replica. Tristan chuckled as he peered in at the newspaper. Art Deco was what they called the vault’s architectural style, but to him, it just looked creepy. Kimber was going to love it. He reached into the bag in his hand and pulled out a can of beans to use as a ramming tool. He hated to break his own rule and smash the glass, but this time, it was worth it.

  He shook glass off the magazine, the newspaper, and the keychain, and carefully tucked them into the extra sack he had grabbed. He transferred the jar of maraschino cherries to the gift bag and looked down at it proudly. He could not wait to see Kimber’s face! Tristan turned and hurried out of the welcome center, so excited that he was practically skipping. The sun felt warm on his face and the landscape was windless. It was turning into a good morning.

  When Tristan got back to the hotel room, he listened for any noise. He did not hear any movement, so he quietly pushed the door open. Kimber was still sleeping. He was happy he had not woken her and tiptoed to the desk where he unpacked the bag of food. He placed Kimber’s gift behind the cans and checked behind him to see if she had stirred. She still had not. He cocked his head to the side and waited to make sure she was breathing. Her pretty, petite body gently rose and fell in time with her breath. Tristan shrugged and sat down at the table.

  Pulling Kimber’s satchel over to him, he quietly unpacked the papers. As he did, a hospital wrist band fell onto the table. He looked it over curiously before moving it to the side. He then organized the papers into like groups, selecting a stack of papers that had a list of red names on top. Tristan noticed how badly the paper was shaking though and he squinted sheepishly over at the food. There was no telling how long Kimber would be sleeping. He set the paperwork down and grabbed a can of chili.

  Reaching into the leather knapsack for a plastic utensil, Tristan found another pair of dog tags and a small glass vial filled with tiny specks. Turning the vial over, he read Freeze-Dried Tardigrades and set it back in the bag. He held the dog tags up in the air: Franklin, Roberts. E, 8060619319, O+, COL. He did not recognize the name and glanced over at Kimber. What had she seen down there? He sat back in the chair, and as he began to digest the literature, his stomach gratefully began to digest his can of beans.

  Tristan scanned the list of names in red and then flipped through the sheets under it. It looked to be a manifest of the individuals selected to become Inannian citizens. The list began with exactly twenty-three women and ended with a few dozen undetermined orphans. Tristan flipped back to the names in red. Margot Iverson. It was strange seeing his mother’s name on the list. The Mothers did not use surnames, and the name Iverson rolled around in his head, sounding foreign. He looked down the list but did not see Kimberly’s name.

  Weird, he thought, and scoured the list again. The last names were throwing him off, but there was one name that he did not recognize at all: Sophia Cortez. Why would a manifest of the Mothers include a Sophia and not Kimberly? Maybe she had changed her name? No, he thought to himself; Kimberly’s work I.D. had read Kimberly Thatcher. She had always been Kimberly Thatcher. Suddenly a thought hit him like a lightning bolt. He almost choked on his chili as he sprang out of his chair.

  Tristan lunged for the laboratory’s master access card that was sitting under the pile of dog tags on the dresser. He had to remind himself to be quiet as possible. He did not want Kimber to wake up, not right now. He needed to sort a few things out first. He tried to calm himself as he untangled the chains from the card in his hands. Colton E. Thatcher, CPT, U.S. Army. Tristan could feel the color drain out of his face, and he looked over at Kimber. He quickly dug in the knap sack for Kimberly’s ID and held it up in the morning light.

  It was possible for Kimberly and Colton to have been strangers, sharing nothing more than a last name, but Tristan got a feeling that was not the case. The whole thing was too bizarre to be mere coincidence. Kimberly was not supposed to have been on the list of Mothers and somehow, she had gotten there. Was it possible her husband, Colton, had helped arrange her salvation as one last act of love before the Bureau sentenced them all to die?

  Tristan again looked over at Kimber, who sighed deeply and rolled over. Tristan froze awkwardly with the cards in his hands. He held his breath until her breathing regulated and then let his out slowly. Did she know her mother had had a husband working above the laboratories? Tristan wondered how much he would have been told about the research going on in the sublevels. And then there was the mystery of COL Roberts’s dog tags.

  Was it possible that the Colonel never made it out of the basement because he helped Kimberly illicitly conceive the last Aurorean embryo? Tristan glanced down at the wristband that had belonged to Ms. Sophia Cortez. If Kimber had found the wristband... that meant that she must have found Sophia’s body. And if Kimber had felt that the wristband was important enough to cut off and keep, that meant she probably had pieced together that Sophia was supposed to have been her mother. Tristan shivered. No wonder Kimber was in such shock.

  Shaking his head, Tristan put keycards, the wristband, and the pile of dog tags into the knapsack. Kimber did not need to have those things in her face first thing when she woke up. He was glad that she had a present to wake up too; he just wished he could do more. In a state of mild shock himself, Tristan settled back into the plushy chair and continued reviewing the stacks of paper.

  He skimmed through the packet of profiles on the ten scientists that had been assigned to SL4, then he skimmed the profiles on the women who were to become the Mothers. Tristan paused to read Margot Iverson’s biography in full before setting it all to the side. Next, he picked up the dissertations on the initial grafting trials, then the complex grafting trials, and finally the thesis on the HOX genes. The scientific reports made sense to him and he found the clinically dry language refreshing.

  Nothing about the reports was fancy. Nothing was embellished. Tristan’s mind readily processed the facts, pictures, and synopsizes, immediately starting to churn with follow-on questions. Once he understood what the testing had looked like, he set the papers down wondering what the laboratories themselves had looked like. The pictures told a thousand words, and Tristan was beginning to understand the story of the Bureau.

  Tristan paused after he made it through the paperwork that had been in Kimber’s pouch. He wanted to let the information absorb before getting into the contents of the briefcase. He picked up his forgotten can of chili and finished the last few bites wondering if Kimber had opened the briefcase yet. Probably not, judging by how short of time the generators had given her.

  He was surprised she was still sleeping but did not blame her. Her mind had been taxed and was probably trying to cope with everything she had seen and learned. And at least her sleeping like this was giving him time to look through the records. Tristan was grateful that when she woke, he would be able to help bear the burden of knowledge, instead of feeling like a nag trying to learn the details. He stacked the loose paperwork neatly and set it on the floor wit
h the leather bag on top.

  Unloading the briefcase as quietly as he could, he pulled out several folders, and a leather portfolio that contained a notepad and several sealed envelopes. COL Roberts had been a man after Tristan’s own heart, keeping his things tidy and professional. Even his handwriting was elegant. The folders were labeled and sterile looking, the top one stamped I.B.R.P. Eastern Region: Top Secret Clearance. He opened it and pulled the documents out. The papers looked to be part of a report on the Bureau itself.

  It was strange to switch lenses from analyzing the world from the Bureau’s perspective, to the lens of analyzing the Bureau from the world’s perspective. Page after page had been comprised on the Bureau’s outputs, findings, resource consumption, and predicted yields. Tristan closed the folder and picked up the next one. It looked almost identical to the first, except that the label did not read eastern region... it read western region.

  Tristan’s brows furrowed; there were similar reports in this folder regarding output and consumption, but this must be of an entirely separate facility. He flipped through the pages looking for any details on where the facility was located. He tossed the folder to the side, all that data and there was no information he cared about. Tristan pulled the last folder closer. The sticker read I.B.R.P: Top Secret Clearance, with no designation of region. Flipping it open, he found that each side of the folder was dedicated to a respective region: the west on the left and the east on the right.

  The right pocket had a small white label reading I.B.R.P. Eastern Region, Fort Knox Compound. In the pouch above it, was a stapled packet detailing the Designated Survival City, Eastern Region: Mammoth Cave System, Kentucky. The left side of the folder mirrored the right, but the label read I.B.R.P. West Region, Cheyenne Mountain Complex, and its stapled packet was titled Designated Survival City, Western Region: Cheyenne Mountain Complex, Colorado.