Dazzle Ships

by E. E. Isherwood

  Felix came through the portal first, and helped Scarlett down the little flight of steps.

  “I don’t see anyone,” Felix said while searching the empty room.

  “I am here,” the woman’s voice called out.

  Felix eyed the room. “Who are you?”

  “You can call me Meg.”

  “Who built you?” he continued.

  “Saratov Heavy Industries built my framework and much of what you see defending my home, but no one built my brain. My soul is my own.”

  Felix scratched his head.

  “Does that mean anything to you?” I asked him.

  He turned to me, but I could tell he was still distracted. “Yeah, I’ve been around the block. I helped build this facility back in the day. I’ve heard of Saratov Industries because I saw all the construction equipment when they moved me from my original cell to the one you found me in. That must have been right when everyone else came into the underground cities.”

  Cities?

  Run!

  My mind was skittish, but I’d never escape now. Not with my two new charges.

  Scarlett handed the staff to me. I swore it got brighter as it contacted my hand. And it felt warm to the touch, at first. The strange luminescence made me feel stronger, somehow.

  “Thank you.” I gave her a hug, though it wasn’t something I normally did. She held me tight, like she needed it.

  “Are we in trouble?” she whispered next to my ear.

  “I don’t know,” I replied, with similar subterfuge.

  “I need to sit,” Felix said as he clunked down on the hard cement steps. “Tell me what’s happening here.”

  I swept my hand to the screen. “Watch this. Meg, can you show my friends the power room?”

  The gigantic screen turned back into a full image, just as it was when I came in. The turbines were displayed inside the darkened cavity of a room.

  Scarlett seemed genuinely impressed, but not Felix.

  “I was there when they installed those things. Glad to see they’re still working, but they’re part of the reason my life was destroyed.”

  “This is the dam, isn’t it?” Scarlett asked. “This is the place you told me about.”

  Felix nodded and my curiosity would not abandon the fight now.

  “What happened to you?” I asked with a girlish innocence.

  “Oh, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Let’s just say—”

  “I will!” I blurted.

  He raised one eyebrow as he looked at me.

  “I promise,” I added. Before I left for my task to help Meg, I wanted as much background information as I could get.

  “I was part of the first teams that came in surveyed this canyon. I was a young man of seventeen, eager to do a good job and maybe become a foreman one day. With the big construction project coming up, I knew my future was wide open.”

  He flicked his fingers like he was pointing all around him. “But before all this was here we dug some sample tunnels. I was young and stupid so I always went in first to see if the rock was stable enough for the proper geologists to come in. Looking back, I think they thought I was expendable,” he chuckled.

  “What did you find?”

  "I didn’t know. Not at first. I knew it didn’t belong, but I thought it was part of the rigging equipment or digging machines. I took it home with me and hid it in my mom’s little house in the sprawling town of Boulder City. I kept that thing with me my whole life—hidden from everyone. I think it made me sterile,” he added in a distressed tone.

  “What was it?”

  “Ha! I’ll tell you, child. Listen. The thing was in my possession for over eighty years before someone finally came looking for it. They locked me up for having it. Took it away, of course. Do you have any idea what it was that brought so much misery upon my life?”

  I shook my head while I leaned on my staff.

  His scowl was directed at me.

  “Me?”

  He shook his head in frustration. “Not you. It.”

  His thin arm and bony finger pointed to the glowing weapon I’d found in the canyon.

  3

  “This? I was told this was a power source. I saw Sister Xandrie use it on—a machine.” I couldn’t describe it if I wanted to. Not in a way that would make any sense. They threw women into a blue light and it burned them up and projected them onto a wall. What possible name could it have?

  “That light is radiation. I’m sure of it. I spent a lifetime with that thing close to me. When the authorities found me with it they took it, and me, to this place. This prison. I guess that was 2015 or ‘16. Don’t really remember. It was just before the end.”

  “The end of the world,” Scarlett added dramatically. Then, looking at me, “He’s told me this story many times over the decades we’ve been jailed together. We’ve tried to guess what it was. Who could have built it using primitive technology in the 1930s? It had to be a time traveler. She brought it from the future.”

  I whistled with incredulity, unsure if time bending was possible. “And you think it was this bar? I found this in a random tunnel stuffed behind a locker. How did it get away from you?”

  Felix shrugged. “There was a war. It was chaos. There’s no telling.”

  “Correct,” the woman’s voice added. “The few historians who survived that period have penned reports on that period, which have been useful to me. The conflict wasn’t between nation states, but between factions of survivors trying to escape to underground havens to ride out the infection. This station is one of the last functioning emplacements in the defensive line constructed in this part of the world to defend against the endless tide of the infected. And that’s why it is so important you help me repair my internal systems.”

  She didn’t use my name, but it brought the conversation she and I were having back into focus.

  “So you want me to go into the tunnels inside the dam and get into the server room and remove a broken piece of yourself. Is that right?”

  “Correct.”

  “And it will help you keep things running?”

  “Correct.”

  “I’ll do it, but you have to show me.”

  “Please explain request.”

  “Show me the bunkers you support. I want to see how big my underground world really is. Then I’ll know if I want to help you.”

  The projector screen dropped to black again, then was replaced with a schematic comprised of fine lines. It was a map. The dam and the lake were obvious and in the middle.

  “We are here,” Meg explained. “And if we zoom out you can see the nearby structures hidden under the hills.”

  I couldn’t believe it. The map showed lines drawn from the dam in the middle to numerous underground structures surrounding it. Much as I had imagined the round Outer Ring of the Complex as the head of a woman, I now saw six such rings, each with their own version of the Standing Quarter and Great Hall. The Commander called them Dazzle Ships because of their ability to stay hidden even when so many people knew where they were. He described how Old World battleships in a great war had used Dazzle camouflage on the high seas—trying to confuse onlookers as to their true nature. Each of those on the screen represented another “ship” parked on the rocky sea.

  Still, the screen kept widening.

  “Here is the rail line to Boulder City. Here is the link with Las Vegas. Here is the tunnel system excavated by your bunker—” The map changed colors so it was obvious Meg was talking about the deep tunnels the Commander had dug. They snaked out in all directions, some going off the map completely.

  “He was a busy beaver,” Felix joked.

  “What was he doing?” Scarlett wondered.

  “He told me our people needed distractions. That it was the only way to keep them sane over the long decades. That plus he erased their memories every couple of years.” I laughed dryly at that.

  The screen changed to a scene I immediately recognized. I was sitting in the
Commander’s office and the replay showed the exact moment he told me about the tunnels and why he allowed them.

  “Whoa! You have records of that?”

  “I am the central recorder for all six bunkers. Every minute of the past eighty-seven years since launch has been recorded, though not every chamber is equipped with feedback systems.”

  “Do you control the neck Loops?”

  “Yes.”

  I touched my broken loop, still on my neck. I'd left it on because my bandage had been wrapped over it, but it was now just a piece of jewelry. I wasn't as hot to rip it off. I’d had it on as long as I could remember and the thought of not having it was almost as bad as knowing it had once broadcast my every movement for the Commander to analyze.

  “My loop is really dead?” I’d been lied to about how they functioned once. I didn’t want to take that for granted.

  “Loop 6-0000FF is offline, non-functional.”

  Excellent.

  “What about Alex’s Loop collar? Can you tell me where he is?”

  “Please restate name or Loop number.”

  “His name is Alex. I have no idea what his loop number is.”

  “I’m sorry, you’ll need to be more specific. Perhaps—”

  The male voice came on, but it was almost a whisper. “Use facial recognition.”

  The screen changed to a view of the Great Hall, and zoomed in on the climbing wall. It took me a few seconds to appreciate when it was.

  “Our climbing final,” I said dumbly.

  “Him. He’s the one,” I walked up and touched Alex. At that moment he was near the top of the climbing wall. Reba and I were a few feet over and lower than him. We’d just been talking. Reba dropped from the wall and belayed down and I started up—driving myself toward what I knew was going to be my failure.

  “Cycling image recognition. Standby.”

  I watched as Alex neared the top. I was sure he was going to ring the bell, even though I was there and I knew he wouldn’t. Still, in the video replay he reached for it and I figured it was going to happen. At that last moment he turned, looked at me struggling up that final pitch, then glanced at Reba on her way down and also at someone else.

  A little nod to that someone standing at the base.

  Then he lost his footing and bounced off the wall until he was caught by his belayer.

  “Wait, I need to see that again,” I commanded.

  “Negative. Processing data. Result: facial recognition inconclusive. Not in database.”

  “Oh, that can’t be. Alex was there from the beginning. He has to be in the system.”

  “Negative. Please proceed as agreed.”

  “Can you show me that scene one more time. I think I saw something.”

  “Negative. Please … ”

  “I don’t think she likes you,” Scarlett said dryly.

  “No, I’m beginning to wonder if I like her.”

  If the calm voice had feelings I couldn’t detect I’d hurt them. On the screen there was another map of hallways and side passages with a moving arrow that pointed through them. I was already in the first room shown.

  “Follow the blinking lights to return to your tour group,” Meg declared. “When you reach the destination I will broadcast additional instructions. Thank you for visiting Hoover Dam.”

  4

  My two friends were ordered to remain in the video room.

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” I declared as I ran up the steps and out the room.

  “Good luck,” they both shouted after me.

  I’ll need more than luck.

  I already knew most of my life was a big lie. Whenever the Commander invited me into his office and made me drink that scotch, it was another branch of my life cut from the tree. All that I’d done, both good and bad, was scoured from my memory. But here was a machine that had recorded all that. All had to do was keep the thing running and I’d be able to reconstruct my whole life from those replays.

  I made a right at the first junction, to avoid going left back to the mini-tank room. Then I passed a large desk long stripped of anything of value and made my way to the elevator, as indicated by the map. I realized there was very little room for deviation from the assigned path as long as I made it to the elevator.

  There were three buttons. T was top I guessed because it was on the highest level. Below that was M, and at the bottom was the letter G. I pressed the G as instructed but I accidentally also pressed M. Both lit up as the doors closed.

  Music played as the little box rattled. Like a dam had been breached, I remembered the sound of music. The memories washed over me and I had to lean against the wall with the onslaught.

  “Good God! How did I forget all that?” Concerts. Playlists. Long car rides. Music was often a part of my life when I was younger. Long before I came into the Complex—where the only music allowed was the daily hymn sung to celebrate our “dear” Commander.

  What a waste.

  When the elevator stopped my knees wobbled. The door opened and I leaned over to look out the front. Besides the light spilling out from inside the cabin, the best I could see was a few feet down another tunnel. It was pitch black ten yards in.

  I threw on my gauntlet light and aimed it into the void but the door shut before I could get a good look.

  I pushed the M button over and over, but the process didn’t seem to want to reverse itself. It continued to drop me down to the G level.

  Elle, you must not help Meg.

  I slapped my temple at the pain. The voice in my head was loud.

  “How are you doing that?” I said aloud.

  I can talk to you, but she is always listening. Deep in the concrete she can’t hear or speak as well as I can. Please, don’t follow her directions.

  I focused my thought, aware how crazy it was to talk to someone I couldn’t see. How are you doing that?

  We share a node on the quantum computer.

  The elevator came to a stop as I was thinking of my reply. I was sure I’d heard the term quantum computer somewhere before. Yet, it wasn’t coming up.

  After a chime heralded our arrival, the doors separated in front of me and another dark chamber was in my field of view. I recognized this one because it was similar to the one on the screen upstairs.

  “Welcome, Elle. Thank you for helping me purge this defective unit.”

  “Oh, no. You’ve got to be kidding.”

  I stepped out onto a metal walkway above the generators in the room below me. The scene was one of chaos and destruction. It was not the same room as on the display. Something had gone terribly wrong in this one.

  The room was two hundred feet long and fifty wide. Maybe thirty feet from ceiling to floor though it was hard to say for sure because water covered the entire floor and lapped at the walls. The generator closest to me had sprung a massive leak where it met the floor. Water shot out like a giant fire hose and scoured the ceiling with great force.

  Beyond that first turbine, as if that wasn’t enough trouble, sparks flared out of a couple others. Wires hung from the ceiling between the first and second unit reminding me of long vines. Far down on the other end I could see a happy red blinking light where Meg wanted me to go.

  I stepped back into the elevator car. “I can’t do this. You didn’t say it was going to be impossible.”

  “Not impossible. You are the only suitable candidate from among the choices.”

  “Yeah, I guess we can’t ask the pregnant lady to do this,” I joked. With the noise from the broken turbine I couldn’t be certain, but I imaged Meg laughed.

  I thought back to my run through those challenges the Commander had thrown in my way. He said he did it to entertain himself, but like so many things of late that didn’t add up. Why do it in secret? Why not make a game of it and let everyone participate? I was certain that made more sense.

  “Get to the other side of this facility and shut down turbine 10, 12, and 14. Then I’ll direct you to my control room wher
e you can access the rest of the broken equipment.”

  I tapped the little speaker. “All right, but when I get back you have to answer all my questions.”

  “When you get back. Agreed.”

  For some reason the tone of the voice carried sarcasm.

  I ignored it. My path was laid out before me, and in some ways that was its own reward. I knew what I was doing in rising to meet this challenge. I would face whatever the computer had for me when I was done.

  I secured my staff over my back and I got a run from inside the elevator onto the walkway, then I jumped for the first turbine five feet under me.

  5

  I should have taken a few minutes to study that first turbine, but the jump wasn’t that far and the leaky spray was to the side. However, in the air, I noticed a few additional things.

  The walls behind the turbine were soaked.

  The walkway I jumped from was soaked.

  The ceiling above me was dripping with water.

  In that moment the jet of water shifted positions. I fell toward my landing and was shot backward and upward by the thrust of just the edge of the high-pressure leak.

  I flailed my arms and spun wildly. In the next second I’d gotten caught up in a bunch of wires hanging from the ceiling.

  Electricity!

  Any sparky back in the Complex would be proud of me for even worrying about that, though if a wire had been live I wouldn’t have had time to wonder if it was. I hung there catching my breath.

  The jet moved around the base of the turbine in a cyclical motion. It would stop for a second, then move to the next position. The spray would shoot out for a moment then move to the next one. I timed my jump to perfection in how it caught me.

  I struggled to hold myself among the wires, but I had to look down just to prepare myself in case the wires ripped from the ceiling and I fell into the water below.

  I drew a breath in with revulsion. I’d missed one important detail because I was looking at the roof and the turbines. There were also people in the water.

  Dead people.

  They’d been devastated by the electrical charge coursing through those wires over by the sparking generators, though the things below me were acting like they were also being shocked. They moved almost with the rhythm of the broken turbine.