“Piper,” said Lila, her earlier certainty returning. “Someone is trying to get in!”
“It’s just an outage.”
Lila’s mind searched for a way to disprove her. Then she had it. “The cameras! Check the cameras!”
“The power is out,” said Trevor. “Duh.”
Piper peeked around, fishing a flashlight from a drawer. She turned it on and speared the dark corners.
“What are you looking for?” Heather asked.
“The power is out,” said Piper.
“Wow. You really are good at this.”
“It shouldn’t be out.”
Heather cackled. “Another brilliant observation.”
“She’s just trying to help,” Raj said.
Heather cocked her head at Raj. “Don’t you have some homework to do?”
“There’s a generator,” said Piper, still searching. “Why didn’t the generator come on?”
“Whatever.” Heather gestured around the room. “We have light.”
“For a while. But the batteries. What about the batteries?”
“Check the junk drawer.”
“Piper,” Lila said, “we need to check the cameras.”
“Take a load off, Lila.” Heather gestured toward the couch. “You’re sounding awfully pregnant.”
“Maybe we should check the cameras.” Raj looked furtively around, appearing almost as afraid as Lila felt, his brown eyes wide. His head ticked between Heather and Piper, unafraid of being mocked as long as they could all get back to abnormal bunker life.
Lila, watching Piper search for an unknown something, wondered if she should go to Raj. But even more, she thought that maybe he should come to her instead of peeing his pants.
“I don’t mean flashlight batteries,” Piper said. “I mean, I think there’s a battery backup for our power supply, for the whole bunker. I saw it in the books. It’s in with the generator. But … why hasn’t the generator kicked on?”
“I can’t believe this happened. I can’t believe the power went out now.” Heather slouched onto the couch she’d just offered Lila. “Right in the middle of my favorite episode of Three’s Company.”
“I wonder if I have to switch the batteries or the generator on manually,” Piper said to herself. “How would I do that?”
“Hurry up,” said Heather, making herself comfortable. “If I don’t get my beans and rice, I’m reporting your ass to the manager.”
Clicking noises filled the room. The overhead lights came on.
“That’s the batteries, then.” Piper exhaled with relief, then listened. The room was quiet. “But still no generator.” She looked around. “We need to turn stuff off. Conserve the power, at least until morning.”
“Who made you Mr. Fix It?” Heather said.
“Mom … ”
Trevor stopped as the sounds of drilling started above, at the bunker’s front door.
CHAPTER FOUR
Terrence stopped. The kitchen clamor abated by two thirds as he killed the big drill and set it aside, leaving only the portable generator humming outside. The last time Morgan had fired up the generator, the hippies around the home had come forward, thinking themselves invited to plug in their own appliances, possibly charging their dead (and surely useless) cell phones. That hadn’t gone well for the hippies, thanks to Morgan’s guns and Cameron’s fists. This time, they were all giving the engine a wide berth.
Terrence swore.
“What?” Morgan asked.
“Just kicked on.” Terrence pointed at something in the complicated electronic lock on the broom closet’s rear door.
“What did?”
“Backup power. Like I figured.” He shook his head. “I don’t know whether to admire whoever built this place or hate them. Both, I guess.”
“But you killed the generator. Cut it off.”
Terrence looked up. “I kept it from kicking on automatically, but if the people in there know what they’re doing, they can get right back around that and run it manually. But I think we’d hear that, so it’s probably not the generator. Must be a battery backup, as I thought.”
“You said you could drill through it.”
“I’m not talking about the lock’s backup. I’m talking about something more central. A contained power source.”
“But temporary,” said Vincent, butting in.
Morgan turned. His hand went to the butt of his gun. Terrence and Vincent had already been together when Morgan had arrived, along with Cameron and the old man, Dan, who acted like Cameron’s father. Vincent was a big black man with giant arms who looked like a Marine. Terrence was slightly lighter and a lot leaner, but still strong. He looked like a specialist or an engineer — someone trained to fight like a Marine, with the brains for special-ops challenges like disarming bombs and opening doomsday bunker doors. Morgan didn’t like that the two were comfortable as a team and could clearly function without him.
“Enough time for them to grab their guns,” Terrence said to Vincent, who nodded. “And enough light for them to do it by.”
Christopher came to the front of the group. “You don’t even know there’s anyone in there.”
“They’re in there, all right,” said Terrence, now fussing with the lock, not looking back.
“We should just drive the truck in here.” Christopher looked out at the lawn. “Smash it in.”
Terrence snickered.
“What?” said Christopher, offended. “Your idea is so much better?”
“First rule of plunder,” said Terrence. “Don’t destroy what you’re trying to plunder.”
“We could hook a chain to the door. Pull it off its hinges.”
“Those hinges?” said Vincent, pointing.
Morgan looked. The door didn’t appear to have any hinges. For some reason this struck Cameron as funny, and he snickered.
“What the fuck you been doing that’s so brilliant, then?” said Christopher, glaring at Cameron.
“I’m just yelling and being an asshole. That’s my contribution.” Cameron looked around the group then back at Christopher. “Oh, no, wait. That’s yours.”
Christopher surged forward. Vincent stopped him before he could reach Cameron, who smiled while chewing his toothpick.
Morgan turned back to Terrence.
“Can you still get in?”
“I told you the power would probably come back on. It just makes things a little trickier. Did you see that little light — ” he pointed at the lock, “ — right there come on a minute ago?”
“No,” Morgan said.
Terrence looked behind Cameron, where Dan was standing quietly. The man really did look like Cameron’s father — not in his features but in his behavior. He had curly, going-gray hair where Cameron’s was straight and brown. He was broad where Cameron was thin and wiry. But he was always right by the kid when they were in a group, like a burly protector.
“Dan. You hear a clank earlier? When we were around the other side?”
“Hard to hear over the drill.”
“The tolerances on this door are almost perfect, but I know I saw pistons top and bottom before when peeking around its edge.” Terrence slapped the door then pointed a thin flashlight into the gap. “They’re engaged now, but they weren’t when I started drilling. I should be able to manually disable the lock in the door, but as long as those pistons are in place, our options are limited. I can’t get a saw through that gap even if I could cut through those things, which I doubt.” He pointed at the door’s bottom then at the doorframe above. “Best I can tell, there are redundant locks top and bottom, probably slid into place by a solenoid. When backup power is on, they’re engaged. But when it’s off, they open.”
“Why?” said Morgan.
Terrence shrugged, pushing his poufy black hair into place above his ear. “Something goes wrong inside the bunker in an emergency, backup-power situation, last thing you want are hard-to-access locks barring your escape. This lock here —
” he tapped where he’d been drilling, “ — stays engaged regardless, and they may even have something simple inside if they want extra protection, like big manual deadbolts. So the place stays secure. But if the power goes out and stays out, there are bigger problems than the door. Air, for example.”
“There must be vents.”
“Sure. But nothing to push air through them.” He shrugged again. “I’m sure there’s a workaround. Maybe someone can ride a stationary bike in there to spin a fan; I don’t know. All that matters right now is that as long as they have backup electricity in there, there’s no way I’m getting this open. That’s where part two of the plan comes in.”
“So now what?” Morgan asked
“I keep drilling. Take out the main lock, if I can. But as to the rest … ?” He trailed off.
“How long?”
“Maybe half an hour. If I can get through it at all. I’ve never seen a lock like this.”
Morgan nodded and turned to Vincent.
“Head around to the side of the house, and get started,” he said.
Then he looked at Terrence, who’d again lifted the drill and pressed it against his in-progress hole in the door’s metal.
“Is this going to work, Terrence?” he asked before the drill reclaimed its cacophony. “Or are we just wasting a lot of time?”
Terrence nodded. “Oh, it’ll work. If there really are people behind this door, we might be about to kill them all … but we’ll get in, all right.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Piper ran to the control room to check the cameras. The sounds of drilling coming from above were unmistakable.
“What’s going on up there?” Raj yelled.
“Shut your curry hole,” Heather shouted back.
“I just want to know — ”
Heather caught Piper before she reached the control room, stopping her, even though it was the least sensible thing she could possibly do. “Are the cameras going to still work with the power … you know … retarded?”
“I don’t know.”
“We have to see what’s going on! If there are people trying to get in up there, will they — ”
“I don’t know, Heather!”
Resentment washed over Piper in a wave. She shook Heather’s hand off and marched into the small control room with the others behind her. She felt like a prisoner who’s been put in charge of a prison then blamed by the other inmates for everyone’s confinement. But she hadn’t built this bunker. She hadn’t known the ships were coming as Meyer somehow had. This was her prison, same as theirs.
She calmed herself and thought: What would Meyer do?
If Meyer were here, he’d probably laugh at the fact that anyone was trying to break in. What were they, stupid? The bunker was a fortress.
Piper had peeked into the terrifying armory Meyer had left in their care. She wouldn’t touch the automatic weapons or boxes of what she feared were grenades and other explosives — a likely reason the armory’s door was as thick as a bank vault’s. Just being in the room scared her silly. But there were handguns in there, too — plain old automatics and the requisite ammo. Even if their assailants did somehow get in, they’d be able to use those weapons just fine.
Relax. Meyer thought of this. Just because someone is trying to get in doesn’t mean they’ll succeed.
Piper thought of the manuals. How far did Meyer’s paranoia extend? If he’d procured assault rifles, gas masks, and God knew what else, had he built a perimeter defense system of some sort? That’s what smart guys always did in the movies. Maybe Piper could flip a switch and electrocute whoever was tap-tap-tapping at their door. Maybe she could release a poison gas topside. Maybe she could blow the surface to rubble, leaving only the impenetrable bunker in a smoking crater.
But those thoughts were ridiculous. Flights of fancy. Inventions that only delayed the inevitable.
You’re in charge here, Piper. It’s all you, girl. You didn’t ask for the crown, but Meyer left on the nightstand when he abandoned you.
“Look,” said Piper, sitting, turning back to Heather as the drilling continued above. “The lights are on. So — ” She jabbed a button, and the screens coughed back to life. “There. See? It’s all fine.”
“So, whatever was wrong with the power is fixed?”
Piper could tell by the lights that nothing was fixed. Too few had come back on, and those that had were far too dim. The whole place was in power-saving mode because their mains were cut and they were on borrowed time.
“I doubt it.”
“The generator,” said Raj. “You said there was a generator.”
“Do you hear a generator?” Trevor said.
Raj looked back at Trevor, but Piper only saw the boys measuring their dicks from the corner of her eye. “I think we’re on battery power. Enough to run what we want, but … ” Piper trailed off. She wasn’t an engineer, but it didn’t take an engineer to know that the more power they used, the shorter their stores would last. She should tell Heather to run around and kill the lights and anything not strictly necessary, but her breath was stolen by the picture that had flickered to life in one corner of the main security monitor.
“But what?” Heather prompted, urging Piper to go on.
“Shh!”
Piper’s blood had gone cold. She’d guessed at what they’d find on the monitors, but seeing it was something else entirely. The camera displaying the image was in the kitchen, probably above the island at its center. The view showed the closet alcove near its right edge. Six people clustered around the bunker’s front door, a man with a large corded drill as their centerpiece.
She reached for the screen, pulled the image forward, spread her fingers to magnify it.
“They’ve got a generator.” Lila pointed at a cord running away from the drill. She knew from past nights that the cameras were able to see in absolute darkness, but right now they didn’t need to. There were several high-powered lanterns at the screen’s corner aimed into the alcove, plus what looked like a shop light clipped on a rack inside the huddle of men, pointing down.
“Oh, sure,” said Heather. “They have a generator.”
Lila ignored her. The group seemed so equipped and prepared. They didn’t strike her as mindless UFO nuts who’d decided to riot and storm the castle while waiting for their ride to the stars. They looked like professional burglars: the kind of people who pull bank heists and high-stakes capers. The kind of people who might have figured a way through Meyer’s defenses, or were in the process of doing so.
Piper peered at the screen and felt a shiver. She pinched the image back down to size, let it drift to where the software wanted to place it as a thumbnail in the gallery, then turned. Eight eyes watched her.
“What do you think?” said Heather.
“About what?”
“Can they get in?”
“I don’t know, Heather.”
“But you looked at the video. Is there another angle? Is there a camera in the closet?”
“I don’t know.”
“How thick is that door?” said Raj.
“I don’t know, Raj. Why would I know that?”
“Why are they drilling? Why aren’t they just bashing it in?”
“I don’t—”
“Do they know we’re in here?”
“Hell if I — ”
“Is it going to be okay? Can they get in?” Lila’s hands found Piper’s arm. She didn’t know whether to be more perturbed or touched. It didn’t matter. Lila’s terrified affection was useless information, same as the rest.
“Lila — ” she began.
“But there’s a computer on the door, right?” said Heather. “With a really hard code or a scanner or something?”
“Computers don’t stop drills,” Raj chided.
“Shut up, Princess,” Heather said.
“Oh, that’s helpful. That will protect us.”
Trevor turned to Raj. “My dad wouldn’t build a place like this and the
n just let people kick in the door.” Then, to Piper, he added, “Right?”
“I don’t know.”
“But the door. The door will hold.”
“She said it would,” Lila told her brother.
“No, she didn’t.”
“Earlier! You weren’t around, Trevor.”
“That doesn’t mean that — ”
Piper stood quickly enough to kick the wheeled chair back into Raj’s shins. He yelped. She held up a hand.
“Look,” she said, “either they’ll get in, or they won’t. But we — ”
Trevor lost a helpless little inhale, his bravado gone. Piper grabbed his shoulder.
“Dammit, Trevor! Don’t lose your shit on me! You’re the man of the house now, so act like it!” She shook him until his eyes cleared.
“Hey, I’m two years older than — ” Raj began.
“Shut up, Princess,” Heather repeated.
Piper began again, locking eyes with each of them. She didn’t have time to play nice or coddle them. They wanted a leader? Fine. They wanted to be helpless sheep and put all the burden on her shoulders? Fine. But she’d be damned if she’d tuck them in and sing them a lullaby.
“Either they’ll get in, or they won’t,” she repeated, speaking slowly. “But if they get in, we need to be prepared.”
“The guns.” Lila looked at her mother, vindicated.
“You’re not touching a gun, Lila.”
“What did you do, with Dad’s gun, Mom? You never did tell us how you got out of Las Vegas.”
“I said enough.”
“Guns,” said Lila, nodding to herself. “Okay.” She seemed to force a breath. The idea of holding cold steel was apparently comforting.
“I’m not letting you use a gun, Delilah Dempsey.”
“I’m taking one, Mom!”
“No, you’re not!”
There was a clanking sound from above. The drill stopped as something heavy struck the floor in the home’s kitchen. Then the drill resumed.
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