The Present – Colorado
Craig leaned over me and shook my shoulder, saying the same words I had heard in the dream. “Wake up, Lulu.” I lurched, and I could tell exactly when he realized my eyes were open. He jerked his head toward the open door outside the cage wall. Penn and Ariel stood together in the doorway looking at me. Ariel smiled coldly at me. It gave me a little chill to comprehend that she had been watching me for some time.
“Time to talk to Martin again,” she said.
I gently disengaged myself from Delphine. The toddler grunted and reached for something. Zizi stepped around Craig and tucked a medium-sized teddy bear under Delphine’s arm. Delphine sighed and snuggled closer to the teddy bear.
Craig gave me a hand and pulled me to my feet. My thigh protested, but for some reason it was noticeably better. I don’t know what happened in the interim, but it didn’t feel like my thigh was going to explode in a burst of messiness that the people in the tech bubble would be cleaning up for the next five years. I tentatively put some weight on it. Fortuitously, I didn’t fall on my face.
“Can you give her crutch back?” Craig asked. “Jeez, it’s not like it’s got a blade on it.” (Future reference for purposes of self-defense. Mounting a blade on a crutch sounded like a fine idea to me.)
I shook my head to wake myself up and noticed that on the inside floor of the cell was a tray with three mugs of what smelled like coffee. A glass of milk with a twisty straw sat beside the three mugs. The coffee smelled like more of that Blue Mountain, and it made my mouth water. I limped toward the tray, picked one mug up, and brought it to my lips. Before I drank I asked, “How long have I been asleep?”
Craig shrugged.
Penn answered, “Maybe six hours.”
I drank half the mug before I felt better. It was hot, and the taste was delightful. It was nice to have something like it for the moment. Craig took a mug and passed it to Zizi. Then he took one for himself. “I like cream,” he said to Penn. “Fake is fine, but cream. Seriously, dude.” He adroitly borrowed Delphine’s milk and poured about a teaspoon into his mug. “This is goat’s milk,” he muttered to me out of the side of his mouth. “Not cream.”
Penn scowled. (Probably because he wanted cream, too, but I didn’t think cows would do well in Cheyenne, Jr.)
Ariel retrieved the crutch and passed it to me through the bars. I juggled the coffee mug in order to take the crutch. I eyed both Ariel and Penn looking for some kind of indication of what was to come. Their expressions were neutral and patently cold in Ariel’s case. I wasn’t getting anything from their facades.
Penn unlocked the cell door, and I handed my mug to Craig. I limped out of the cage and passed through the other open door. Ariel’s hand rested on the grip of the pistol tucked into her belt as she trailed after me. I didn’t know what kind it was, but I hoped the safety was off, and she shot herself in her dainty foot.
I waited until Penn locked the cell door again. Then he exited the outer door and locked that with a key. I smiled at Ariel and swung the crutch at Penn’s head with an unerring accuracy that I felt with all of my soul. (At that moment I was Babe Ruth pointing at the center-field bleachers. Poppops had read the Bible to me, and he had also talked a lot about the golden age of baseball.) The end connected with his forehead before he crashed into the door like a marionette that had just had its strings snipped. I followed up by using my good leg to launch my body so that I landed on Penn’s back. I didn’t pause to admire my form, but punched and kicked him with all of my might. We fell to the ground in a pile of arms and legs with me on top. The crutch spun away, and I continued with my fists, hitting every part of Penn that I could. Ariel screamed something from behind me, but I was too focused.
“You took Delphine’s mother away from her, you little worthless turd!” I roared, gripping Penn’s shoulder-length brown hair and slamming his head into the cement floor. Penn went limp, and I nearly groaned aloud with sheer disappointment that he was no longer awake. I picked his head up once more and realized that the end of Ariel’s pistol was about six inches away from my head. I froze as I stared at the round black muzzle end of the barrel.
“Get up,” Ariel snarled at me. The muzzle jerked minutely.
Carefully I placed my good leg so that I could rise but not before I let Penn’s head drop onto the cement again. The sound of the resulting crack probably would have made me wince if I hadn’t been expecting it. “Whoops,” I said insincerely. “How’d that happen?”
“Get up before I put a slug in one of your friends,” Ariel growled. “We might need you, but we don’t need them.”
I didn’t say anything, but Ariel had just been added to my most recent list of people who sucked bigtime. (Theo, Penn, some person at Sunshine who’d borrowed my bicycle and hadn’t returned it a few months previous, and Ariel. McCurdy made the list, too, but I figured he was paying for his sins already because the rumors trickled across the continent about how new animals were stalking him and his group of survivors for their crimes.)
Penn groaned on the floor, and I frowned. That was too bad that he was still breathing. I slowly reached for the crutch while Ariel took two steps back, still covering me with the weapon. I bared my teeth at her, and her eyes narrowed. I braced the crutch under my arm and limped away from Penn. When Ariel took another step back I balanced on my good leg and hit Penn in the face with the end of the crutch. “Oopsie daisy!” I said disingenuously.
“Oh for the love of…” Ariel said and trailed off. “Just get your ass down the hallway and leave him be.”
Another man trotted up and glanced at Penn. He grabbed my good arm, and I resisted the urge to jerk it away. “Let’s get her down to Security Ops,” Ariel said. She nudged Penn with her bare foot. (She still had neon green polish on her toenails, and I had the strangest urge to stare at them.)
“Come on, honeybunch,” the man said to me. And there was another urge to lean my head down and gnaw on the hand that was holding my arm. The man correctly read my intent and yanked his hand away. He pointed in the correct direction.
“Watch out for the crutch,” Ariel warned. She nudged Penn again with her foot. “Come on, stupid.”
“The crutch,” the man said. “Right. I was looking at her teeth.”
After a few minutes I limped into the same room I’d been in before. The simple door with its simple sign was the same. A glow of light revealed that the gennies were running again. The rows of desks with keyboards and monitors were the epitome of 1960s and 1970s technology. The desk chairs were neatly tucked under the desks, and the rotary phones remained silent.
Theo stood in the corner contemplating a flickering fluorescent light. He turned his head to look at me and then eyed Ariel with her pistol still out. “Trouble?”
“She jumped Penn,” Ariel said and finally put the pistol back in her belt.
“I didn’t have a plum flower chain whip,” I said as I yanked out a chair and sat down. I braced my chin on the crutch. I didn’t want to give up my only weapon. “You know, right Theo? Did you tell Ariel about that plum flower? Or maybe she’s experienced it firsthand?”
Ariel’s eyes narrowed again. “I’m a major in the Air Force. I don’t need—”
“You’re an O-4,” I said. “I would have pegged you for a light colonel or a full bird at the least. You’re out of uniform, Major.”
“You’re sure about her, Martin?” Ariel asked Theo. “She’s like a piece of coarse sandpaper. There’s no smoother, softer side to her.”
“You’re trapped in here, Ariel? You going to vanish—” I snapped my fingers to demonstrate— “just like that? You’re stuck in here with Theo, the beloved, and the mermaids. That’s a damn shame.” I paused and thought about it. “This place doesn’t look like it’s had a contingent since Carter was President.” I lowered my voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “I did a paper on Jimmy back in high school.”
“A skeleton crew,” Ariel said. She glanced at Theo, and I saw him
nod at her. “This place needed someone to man it since it was decommissioned in 1981. There’s been a reserve of airmen here ever since. It was easy duty, but boring, too. I was here for twelve months. I was rotating out to Italy when the change happened. We found out quickly that we couldn’t leave.”
“Oh, you can leave,” I corrected, “but then you’d vanish.”
“That’s right,” Ariel confirmed. “All my troops went poof just like snapping your fingers. Then I was all alone for about three months. I had food. I had water. I found the mermaids, but they aren’t really friendly. Then people started showing up. First Martin.” She nodded at Theo. “Then others like Tate and Salome. As soon as Martin realized what this place was, he was grateful for its impact.” Her hard eyes stared at me. “And yes, he talked about you, as well as the people he murdered.”
Theo’s shoulders jerked in response to Ariel’s words. I knew he didn’t like that. He wouldn’t have wanted to admit his failings.
“Ariel explained what this place was in greater detail,” Theo said. “She told me about it, and I knew that God had given us a gift. As time passed and more people arrived, we began to plan. Then we started hearing about the other bubble at Sunshine, and I heard about Sophie and the other one, the beautiful blonde with blue eyes. Well, I knew they had to be talking about you, Hasadiah. I had been given another gift; a chance at redemption.” He motioned at Ariel, and she went to the computer monitors. “It’s time to for you to have your chance at redemption, Hasadiah. It’s time to know your part in all of this.”
Chapter 16
Lulu Begins to Hear the Story
The Present – Colorado
What I really wanted was the short version. I simply wanted Theo to tell me what he wanted and how he wanted me to accomplish it. He could skip over the rhetoric, and I would be a happy camper. (Or more likely a somewhat non-grumpy camper who liked to swing a crutch with rash abandon.) I could get cracking, and then maybe Zizi, Craig, Delphine and I could walk away from this place with the firefly pixies happily buzzing around our ears, but I wasn’t that stupid. There was a strong possibility that Theo didn’t want anyone to walk away from anything. Theo was insane. He was crazy outside of the bubble. He was loopy on the inside. Redemption, I wanted to scoff out loud. What a load of bull hockey. There wasn’t enough forgiveness on the face of the Earth for Theo to earn redemption.
Ariel fiddled with knobs and dials. She hit a few buttons, and a screen lowered on the far side of the room. It was a movie screen, all white and pristine as if no one had ever used it. Then she made a noise of evident satisfaction and went to a projector on a table that I hadn’t noticed before. It was a gray piece of equipment right out of a high school movie from the 80s or even the 70s. I know that I never saw one in real life, but I’d seen them in the odd older movies. Maybe Ferris Bueller’s Day Off? Fast Times at Ridgemont High? It didn’t really matter.
Ariel flipped a switch, and the film began to roll. Theo said, “Turn the lights off, Tate.” I glanced over to see Sophie’s favorite psycho hitting the switches by the door. There was only a little bit of light coming through the half-open door. The film flickered on the screen. Lines of white appeared, and the sound was uneven and full of static.
White letters appeared on a gray background. “This is an Air Training Command Video Production” rolled across the screen. The backdrop was what I assumed was the official Air Force logo. The film could have been from the 60s or the 70s by my estimate based on the lines and jumps of the film. The words “Top Secret” appeared. It stayed up about ten seconds to accentuate its importance. Then a man in a uniform appeared. On his plain shirt sleeves were wing-shaped stripes with a star in the middle. There was a name tag on one side that read “Murphy.” I didn’t know much about Air Force enlisted ranks, so I was guessing he was a higher-ranking enlisted soldier. The man was in his thirties with hair and eyes that both appeared dark in the black and white film. He gazed seriously at the camera lens and said, “This is an introduction to Project Arrowguard. Welcome to Colorado, and welcome to life under the mountain.”
Oh, for popcorn and a tall cup of Diet Coke to top off this stellar viewing experience.
Murphy discussed security procedures that made me want to put my head down on the desk and rest my eyes for the interim. It sounded just like some of the asinine films I’d watched in high school. (“Drive Safely or Death on the FREEWAY!”) It didn’t matter how technologically advanced we got, training films stayed about the same. No budding Spielbergs or Kubricks had been part of the military regime. I glanced at Theo and saw that he was watching me. Evidently, he’d seen the flick before and was more interested in my reaction. On the other hand, Ariel was examining her nails as if she might have broken one while pulling a pistol on me earlier. Horrors!
Murphy went on a security-conscious bent for several minutes. There were phrases like “report suspicious activities” and “be on guard and ever vigilant” thrown about for effect. Then he went onto, “You’ve been chosen for a formidable task, and your training is extremely important.” Then I sat up straight as I heard “…nuclear weapons in this era of non-war turmoil.”
Murphy paused in the film and indicated a chalkboard behind him. The camera turned and focused on the display. “Considering the unspoken competition that has emerged between the two most powerful nations on this Earth,” the airman went on, “it is our duty to ensure that mankind will persevere even at a great cost.” He pointed at the top bulleted item. “Protection of societal mores in a case of war is crucial. There are dozens of facilities located across the United States and Canada that will ensure the continuation of our society. These items are updated on an annual basis. For example, films and books are added as determined by a community of military and scientific advisors.”
The second bulleted item was “Survival.” Murphy indicated that one and said, “There are also shelters that are stocked for the survival of approximately 10,000 people for estimated time intervals. In the event that the selection cannot be brought to the shelter in a timely fashion, the local population will be curtailed to fulfill the determined needs.”
I took that to mean that they had predetermined who would be saved in the case of global thermonuclear war. If those people couldn’t be saved, then they would cull the nearest town for survivors so they would have a nicely rounded gene pool. How thrilling for them.
Murphy wasn’t done. The last item was “Culmination.” “This brings us to the most difficult part of your training,” he said, pointing at the last bulleted word. “In this era we have to know that not only will we survive, but that we will endure over the other countries that would decimate democracy.” He knitted his hands together and stared at the camera lens, clearly trying to emphasis the gravity of his message. “Every man watching me now has been selected for certain attributes that will contribute to this facility’s primary cause.”
What cause? To be a part of NORAD? To keep higher-ranking military officials safe in case of nuclear attack?
“Project Arrowguard is a zenith of all our planning in the face of current events,” Murphy said. “We cannot know that the other nations with nuclear capabilities will make the right, the moral, choices, being that a democratic process is the only way that mankind will overcome its baser tendencies.”
I had a sinking feeling. I glanced at Theo, and he no longer watched me. Instead, he frowned at the ground while he waited. Ariel had a hand over her mouth as she passively watched Murphy on the screen.
“I can say that this will never be the easy choice,” Murphy said. “It is in our nature to do things by the easiest method, and this is not that method.” He paused, and the only sound was the clicking noise of the projector as the film reel spun. “For most of you this will be a supportive role. You will be privy to the unit’s mission, and it will be your duty to support the security personnel’s actions. This includes locking down the facility in the event of a world-altering incident. Specialized training follows
for each of ten positions.” Murphy sighed heavily. “I pray that this will never come to pass. Therefore, Godspeed to each and every one of you.”
This wasn’t a facility that was meant to house people until the nuclear winter passed. It was something more. It was something monstrous.
The movie abruptly stopped. The end of the film flapped as the reel turned, and Ariel flicked the switch on the side of the projector. Tate turned on the light and looked at me expectantly.
Theo repeated Murphy’s sigh. “Hasadiah, I hope you will show me how clever you are now.”
“I gather that the people who were stationed here weren’t meant to survive,” I said.
Theo nodded. He motioned at Ariel. Ariel said, “You gather correctly. I could get into the whole explicit details, but the gist is that this was a place where a weapon of last choice was created. Most Americans thought that it was nukes that were a weapon of last resort. Nuke them. Nuke us. Nuke everyone. The Soviets had nukes pointed at everyone. So did we. We were planning on nuking everyone who could have moved on us. China, the USSR, Great Britain, et cetera. That changed over the years and the lines blurred. Then the wall fell. ‘Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.’” She looked around. “Plans for places like this had been in effect for decades since the time of JFK, so it wasn’t a matter of simply tearing it down. No, it was a bitter little secret that needed to be maintained. In time, most of the politicians and military officials forgot. It was decommissioned, but some savvy individual realized that it basically couldn’t be left to rot like some of the old missile silos. Sure the missiles were gone, but the buildings could be left to corrode and fill with water to return to whatever it had been.”
Ariel stopped and looked at me. I clutched the crutch and attempted to digest the information in a way that didn’t make me want to vomit. This was a place where someone would do something that would end…everything. “This place, Cheyenne Jr., is some kind of Judgment Day device?”
Forest of Dreams Page 15
