“Not really. We are almost a mile underground. It has to move that fast.”
“A mile? You’re kidding, right.”
“Not in the least. A set of formidable doors was facing the elevator. Keller beat on the doors with the end of the flashlight. They waited a few minutes before he repeated the process.
“I don’t think anyone is home.”
“Maybe not. They may have moved to someplace else or even abandoned the area. It just seemed like…”
The doors slid open and three men with guns stood facing them.
“Easy. I’m Captain Keller. We came to see if anyone survived. We’re from NORAD.”
The three men didn’t say anything.
“You can talk, right?” Keller asked.
“IDs,” one of the men finally said.
Keller shrugged and handed over his military ID card. The pilot did the same and the man took them, turned, and walked off. The other two stood their ground with the rifles pointed at them.
“How did you know they would be down here?” the pilot asked.
“Just a guess. Everyone that works here is paranoid and it made sense they would hold up in the safest place they could find. These people don’t think like you and I. To them, staying as far underground as possible would be the only reasonable choice.”
“How do they get food and water?”
“I’m sure they go topside for replenishment but then get back here as fast as possible. If anyone has a way of getting us up and running, it will be these guys.”
“How do they stand it down here all the time?” the pilot asked.
Before he could answer the guard returned with their IDs and told them to follow him. The other two fell in behind them as they were led through several different large doors until they came to an area that looked like it held office spaces.
“This is the brains of the place. Most of the tough work goes on here. I was here in '95 when they were working on the first F-111. You could almost smell the brains cooking,” Keller told him.
“Captain Keller, I’m glad to see you survived,” a distinguished tall man with a large bushy mustache and disheveled hair said, putting out his hand.
“Dr. Rinehart. If anyone made it, I was sure it would be you,” the Captain said shaking his hand vigorously, “Good to see you again.”
“Yes, well it certainly is good to know others survived. We have been living down here ever since the event.”
“Why stay down here? Why not move topside and try to locate others?”
“We did send out a team but they found nothing. They went as far as Reno. Everyone is dead. We decided the safest place to be was here. It protected us the first time and if it were to happen again, well you get the picture.”
“You have reason to believe it will happen again?”
“Not particularly but we don’t know that it won’t either,” Rinehart replied.
“Now many are down here?”
“Twenty-one.”
“How do you get water and food?” the pilot asked.
“At first we used up many of the stored provisions we keep down here in the event of a nuclear attack. We have enough on hand for twenty-five people for nine to twelve months. We started to use those first then when we were finally able to get readings on the outside that showed no radiation levels out of the norm, we decided to send a team out. After that it was just a matter of locating food and water and bringing it back. We could probably stay down here a full year if we really had to.”
“Not me. I would go nuts down here. I’ve only been here a short time and it gives me the willies,” the copilot said.
“How did the rest of the U.S. make out?” the doctor asked.
“Not good. We have found other survivors but so far, maybe a thousand at most. We know of four larger, and I mean in the hundreds, not thousands or millions, settlements. Washington is gone from a government standpoint. Like you, those that happened to be underground at the time survived. Everyone above ground perished,” Keller told him.
“Yes, that is our assessment as well. We are pretty sure this was not manmade. We see no indication of nuclear, biological, chemical or bio-chemical contamination.”
“That’s pretty much our conclusion as well,” Captain Keller said.
“So now what? What should we do next?” Rinehart asked.
“You might want to come to live with us in Colorado Springs. We have a community that is trying to put the pieces back together as best we can. We could certainly use your people to help us rebuild. We need radio communications restored and computer power if possible. We have been working on it but frankly we aren’t doing too well.”
“That wouldn’t be much of a problem. All of our computers are up and running. We are networked internally. Of course the internet is kaput, but we can communicate by computer from one office to the other.”
“Lord, that would be immensely helpful. We are desperate to get computers back on line,” the Captain said.
“How would we get to Colorado?”
“We can send planes for you. We have a few up and running. They are old WWII planes but they operate and are good for hauling people and equipment.”
“I suppose I should ask the others what they think. I certainly see the advantage of all of us being in one place and out here in the middle of no place isn’t exactly my first choice,” Rinehart said, smiling quickly.
“When could you be ready, assuming people want to go?”
“If you want our equipment that is essential, a week. Ten days at tops.”
“Good. Good. We were on our way to California and then up to Alaska before we return to Colorado. I’ll stop by on our way back from Alaska and see how many are willing to join us.”
“Oh, I would venture to say, they all will. It was isolated before but now it is just plain desolate. I think they are all willing to get out of Dodge,” the doctor said.
“Excellent. Then we will get out to California and then head back just as fast as we can. Alaska is a long haul but we need to check it out.”
“For survivors?”
“Partly. The rivers and lakes are rising at an alarming rate and we haven’t had much rain. We’re trying to figure it out,” The Captain said.
“The ice caps. They are melting,” Doctor Rinehart said.
“Melting? How do you know that?”
“The ozone layer. It has been severely weakened. We have more UV rays filtering through than ever before. The ice caps will eventually completely melt and cause massive flooding.”
“You don’t mean of Biblical proportions do you?”
“Oh, no. Nothing like that. We will lose parts of all the coastal areas but it won’t cover the full landmass if that’s what you mean. We will have rivers overflowing their banks but we will still have ample land to live on,” he told the Captain.
“Good Lord. It is really going to be different isn’t it?”
“You have no idea,” the doctor said.
It didn’t take long to confirm that Dr. Rinehart was correct. When they landed in California it was immediately clear that much of the coastline was being reclaimed by the ocean. Coming in from the north they flew over the San Francisco airport or at least where it should have been. It was totally under water. Only the support pillars were above water on the Golden Gate Bridge. Merely the tops of some of the buildings remained visible.
LA wasn’t quite as bad but the water level was definitely rising. It had already consumed Vista Delmar and Pershing Drive that runs at the end of the airport. Water had spread into the airport property and had reached as far as the end of runway 6 R and 6 L.
“Not a single beach,” Keller murmured.
“Yeah, look at the 747 sitting at the end of 6 R. The water is up to the wings.”
“Amazing. I wonder how much more of the area it will finally consume?”
“From what I gathered from your friend, a good amount,” the copilot said.
“Let’s see how our
people are doing,” Keller said and read off the landing checklist.
When they touched down, three men came out from one of the large hangers and jumped into a jeep and raced to meet them.
“Boy, are we glad to see you guys,” Sergeant DeMotto said.
His clothes were grease stained and he looked like he hadn’t bathed in a week.
“Gee, you didn’t have to dress up special just for us,” Keller said.
“Sorry about that. We have been working nonstop to try to get the B-19 up and running before the damn water takes over the place. It has been rising about a foot a day.”
“How close are you?”
“Maybe two or three days if everything works out like we hope. We have had to practically rebuild every system and even adapt a few others because of a lack of parts.”
“And the Liberator?” he ask, referring to the Douglas aircraft.
“Longer. Probably another week to ten days.”
“I don’t know if you’re going to have that much time before the water takes over,” Keller’s copilot said.
“No kidding. That’s why we are glad you are here. We need some help. More specifically we need some muscle.”
“That we can help with? Just show us what you want and we will give it our best shot,” the Captain said.
The Sargent led them about half way down the runway and stopped at a large hanger. Inside sat the B-19 and the Douglas Liberator. On the pad in front of the hanger were three other civilian aircraft.
“We are pretty well set with the nineteen,” the sergeant said, “but we need some help in getting the engines back in place on the Douglas. We only have the chain hoist and some ramps and we simply can’t do everything that needs to be done at once with just the three of us.”
“Then let’s get to it,” Keller said.
They spent the next four hours trying to manhandle the giant engines into place. Even with all of them pushing and shoving it was backbreaking work. Keller looked down at his uniform. It was easy to understand why the sergeant looked the way he did.
“Lord, isn’t anything easy about this thing?”
“Oh yeah. This is the easy part. You should have seen us trying to get the wings off to inspect the wiring and fuel tanks. Now that was hard,” the Sargent said, wiping grease off his hands.
“You’re right, if this was the easy part, I really don’t want to see the hard part,” Keller agreed.
“What about the props?” one of the men asked.
“Piece of cake. We can handle those but since you’re here, what the hell, let’s just do it,” the Sargent said, smiling.
Three hours later all that needed to be done was connect the fuel lines, electrical systems, hydraulic lines and test everything out.
“So, now that the engines are in, how long before she can fly?” Keller asked.
“Five days tops.”
“Still that long?”
“You want to take her up untested?”
“Well, since you put it that way, I guess five days isn’t too bad.”
“Thought so,” the Sargent said grinning.
“Is there anything we can do to help cut the time down?”
“How long have you got?”
“I need to take a trip up the coast to Alaska to see what is going on and do a quick search for survivors.”
“Quick search? In Alaska? No way possible to do a quick search in that land. I was stationed up there and not only is it big but it’s rugged.”
“Maybe I misspoke. More like look around some and then head back.”
“That you can do. Hard telling how much water they have now.”
****
Keller decided to leave his crew there to help with the repairs and just he and the copilot would fly north. Their plan was to fly along the coast, stopping as fuel dictated. The first stop was in Portland, Oregon. As they had seen in other places, the rivers had breached their banks and much of Portland was underwater.
Smith Lake and Vancouver Lake were now one large body of water that covered Hayden Island and further downstream, Government Island. Like in LA, portions of the airport were slowly being engulfed by the rising water. Only a section of runway 28 L was open but it was enough for the plane to set down and taxi to get fuel. They were very thankful for the short take off ability.
They continued to fly north toward Juneau but it didn’t take them long to realize that even taking on a full load of fuel in Portland they weren’t even close to making it all the way. Alaska was more than just big. It is a whole country into itself. Most people think of Alaska as being the land jutting out from Canada close to Russia when in fact it begins all the way down by Washington State.
They were soon aware that they hadn’t seen any snow. Even the highest peaks were no longer covered. They knew they didn’t need to go much further to see what was happening. With fuel running low again they set down on Victoria Island at a small airport named Campbell River. They climbed down from the plane and were struck by the temperature.
“It must be fifty or so degrees,” the copilot said.
“Or more. Maybe high fifties,” Keller replied, “Dr. Rinehart was definitely right. Everything is melting.”
Both men were exhausted and hungry so they decided to spend the night and scrounge up any food they could find. The best they could find was a box of Cheese Nips that hadn’t been opened, a package of Oreos and a stale box of Vanilla Wafers. The warm cokes didn’t exactly add to the culinary delight.
“Snickers?” Keller said as they were climbing into the plane after getting as much fuel as possible in the plane.
“How many do you have?”
“Four.”
“In that case, I want two.”
“Seems fair to me,” Keller said, tossing him two of the candy bars.
They took off once again looking down in amazement at the lush green land that had been covered by snow for so long.
“How much further?” Keller looked at the charts and did some calculations.
“Maybe fifty miles. It’s hard to tell since the landscape is so different but that seems about right considering the speed and direction.”
“I certainly don’t see much up ahead.”
They flew on for another thirty minutes but still nothing came into view.
“Did we miss it?”
“I don’t see how. I double checked. We should have flown right over it. Circle around and let’s take another pass. They banked around and flew back over the area.
“See that big cruise ship? I think that is docked where the pier used to be,” Keller said.
“So where is the town?”
“They don’t have any really tall buildings. My guess is that they are under all that water down there,” the Captain said.
“No bloody way. The entire town is underwater?”
“I think so. I don’t think Juneau exists any longer.”
“Good golly Miss Molly. That means the polar caps are melting at a pretty rapid rate. I wonder how much is left of them.”
“I don’t know and I don’t intend to find out. I’m not about to attempt to make it all the way to the top of Alaska just to find out what we already know. It’s melting,” Keller said.
“What about Colonel Webber?”
“He can come up here if he really wants to know bad enough. Hell, we haven’t even touched the mainland of Alaska and if we did make it that far we would need to go even further north to get to the real ice cap. I’ve seen enough. We need to get back to LA and help get those planes back to Colorado before they lose even more of the airport,” Captain Keller said.
“I’m all for that,” the copilot said, as they started to climb and banked to a southern heading.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Pennsylvania
“All I am saying is that something is wrong. The water has covered the field they used to land in. It’s edging toward town. Sandbags were a joke. It just slowed down the inevitable.”
“S
o what do you want me to do? I can’t just wave my hand and make it go away,” Ben said, looking up at Randy.
“Don’t talk down to me. I know you can’t make it stop but we are going to have to make some hard decisions. Not later but now.”
“The committee is working on that. They have been talking to …”
“Forget that crap. This is going to take more than the committee jacking their jaws. We need to make a decision before it is too late. How much longer do you think we have before we are going to have to move to higher ground or try to get to Colorado? The rivers will soon start covering the bridges and then what?” Randy said.
He had been arguing with Ben and the committee for days about taking some action before it was too late but his patience was running out. He had been recording the water’s slow but steady march toward the town.
“You’re the one that said we needed to move trailers and provisions further up. We did that. Same thing that Colorado Springs did. We listened to you after your last talk with Webber. We did what you suggested,” Ben said angrily.
“Ben, I know what they did in Colorado and I know what we have done here but I think we just need to get out of here. Staying here is prolonging the inevitable,” Randy argued.
“We move to the trailers,” Ben said decisively.
“Ben, come on. We have almost a thousand people here now and what, three hundred trailers up the mountain? It took a week just to get those up there and now they are out of space. We don’t have enough trailers or time.”
“What do you want from me Randy? I’m not the Commander-in-Chief. Hell, I'm not officially anything. I just got thrust into this job. I can’t order these people to do anything they don’t want to do,” Ben said, rubbing his face with his fingers.
“All I am asking is that you call a full town meeting. Get as many as you can to attend. Let them know what our options are and get those that want to leave on the road immediately. If we wait even a week we may not even have that option. We need to let those who want to go know they need to leave soon.”
“Christ, we are becoming a nation of nomads. Is this how it is going to be?”
“As much as I hate to say it, probably,” Randy said.
THE END - Book I - Of THE EVENT SERIES Page 34
