The Dying of the Light: Interval

by Kristopher, Jason

  “Lieutenant, you will explain to me exactly what is going on here, am I clear?”

  “Yes, ma’am. We—”

  Kim interrupted him. “And, you will explain to me exactly how long this has been going on.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And, you will explain to me precisely why it is, Mr. Barnes,” she said, moving to his side and half-facing the rest of the room. “That you have less than half the chips of anyone else at this table. Our father would be appalled.”

  There was dead silence in the room, until Johnny glanced down and saw the slight grin on her face, then mirrored it with one of his own. “Well, Colonel, Janet had this massive full house…”

  With her voice still stern, Kim’s grin got bigger. “Oh, what, now you’re telling me you got beat by a girl?” There was an involuntary snicker from Janet Turner, and then suddenly they were all laughing, as though the dam holding back the tension had been broken. Kim moved to the only empty chair at the table and sat down. “Well, what are you waiting for? As you were, and deal me in!”

  A little while later, in between hands, Johnny looked over at Kim as he shuffled the cards. “So you really thought the room was on fire?”

  Kim leaned back in her chair, puffing on a cigar. “Well, since the whole bunker is supposedly non-smoking,” she said, eyeing one of the aircraft mechanics, “and I didn’t know about Mr. Livingston’s little pet project, what else was I supposed to think?”

  Johnny laughed. “You should’ve seen the look on your face. Priceless!”

  “Yours wasn’t much better, Johnny. Trying to hide behind Martinez, for shame!”

  Johnny blushed. “Yeah, well…”

  “‘Yeah, well’ nothing. And you play like Mom used to play. Horribly. No wonder you’re almost out.”

  Martinez spoke up. “Actually, ma’am—”

  “Martinez, you asshole, shut up!” Johnny cried out, trying to shush Martinez before he got out whatever he was about to say.

  Kim raised an eyebrow. “Go on, do tell,” she said.

  Martinez laughed. “Sorry, man, she’s the boss,” he said to Johnny and turned back to her. “Actually, he’s already bought in again.”

  Johnny sighed, his face in his hands in shame.

  “Twice.”

  Johnny’s head sank to the table.

  Kim hadn’t laughed that hard in a long time. She wiped tears from her eyes, and wasn’t the only one in the group. “Oh, Johnny. Wow.”

  He sat up, the picture of bruised ego. “Some of us are better at lying than others, I guess,” he said, continuing to shuffle.

  Turner snorted without a trace of mirth. “At least it gives us something to goddamn do around here.”

  The others kept laughing for a moment, but slowly, they began to look at each other with quick glances and shaking heads, and a pall came over the room. Kim could guess that the sudden mood swing had at least a little to do with the empty bottle of whiskey on the desk that had been pushed to one side.

  “What is it?” she asked, curious as to why they’d all got so quiet so quickly.

  Johnny cleared his throat, but stopped short of answering. Finally, Turner spoke up.

  “It’s just… beggin’ your pardon, ma’am, but we’re… well, we’re bored.”

  Kim put her chair flat on the floor, looking at the diminutive medic. “Bored?”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, I shouldn’t have said anything,” she replied, looking at her watch. “Oh, wow, is that the time? I need to get to my bunk.” She started to stand up, but one look at Kim and she sat back down.

  “It’s OK, guys,” said Kim, back in colonel mode. “I know you don’t want to say anything, but I promise, nothing goes past these walls, at least, with your name attached. Tell me what’s up. I can’t fix it if I don’t know it’s broken. Start with the ‘bored’ part.”

  Janet spoke up again. “Well, ever since Beoshane and his goons lightened up, it’s like…”

  “Wait, so you’re saying we’re not getting attacked enough?” Kim sat forward, her annoyance plain to see.

  “Sis, I love ya, but shut up,” said Johnny.

  Kim looked around and saw what she was doing—closing off the very people she wanted to hear from. “You’re right. I’m sorry. Go ahead, Janet.”

  The medic cleared her throat and started over. “When he and his people were attacking all the time, it sucked, for sure and for certain. No one in their right mind wants that to happen over and over again.” She looked down as she continued. “Still, at least we were busy.”

  Martinez threw down his cards and tapped the ashes from his cigar into the ashtray. “What she’s saying is we had something to do. We had a goal, a focus.” The others began nodding and agreeing. “But now, it’s like all we do is wait, and wait, and wait for something else to happen. It’s… well, it’s making us all a little crazy.”

  When no one else spoke up, Kim leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. “So what we need is something to do. Something for all of us to do, not just scratching around underground like a bunch of rats.”

  Johnny nodded. “That’s it, exactly. We’re dying down here, Kim. Oh, sure, our bodies are alive, but we’re as bad as walkers. We need something to take our minds off the fact that we’re going to be stuck underground for another ten to fifteen years or even more.”

  “Anyone have any ideas?” No one said anything, but they all looked thoughtful. “OK, I tell ya what. Let’s all think about what we can do, and if anyone has an idea, let me know. I’m meeting with the governor next week, and we’ll talk about what we can do to alleviate some of the boredom. Sound good?”

  There was a round of nods and murmured agreements, and the mood lightened noticeably. Johnny finished shuffling the cards, and picked up his cigar.

  “Now, whose deal is it?”

  When I woke, the room was dark, and the candles I’d put on the table had long since burnt out. I yawned, the sour taste of old wine on my tongue making me wince as my jaw popped. I wiped a hand across my face and palmed the lights on, wincing again as the fluorescents stabbed into my squinting eyes. I wondered what had awakened me, and then heard a scrabbling at the door. I glanced out the peephole, and saw Kim leaning against the door, fumbling with her id in the keycard slot.

  I shook my head, trying to dispel the rest of the cobwebs and opened the door, ready to catch her as she fell inside. I coughed at the stench of stale cigar smoke and helped her to a chair, where she sat back and swayed. I had only seen Kim drunk a couple of times in our ten-year marriage, but this time… she was close to passing out. I glanced at the medkit near the door, but there wasn’t anything in there that would help. There was only one thing for it, and she might hate me for doing it, but turnabout was fair play, after all.

  I helped her stand, guiding her to our small bathroom and the shower. Helping her out of her uniform and boots, I tried not to smile and cackle as I turned the shower on full blast, as cold as I could get it. I quickly shut the shower door and leaned against it as she began yelling and fumbling with the door handle.

  Nothing like an ice-cold shower to sober you up damn quick.

  Eventually, she sobered enough to turn the shower from cold to hot, and I stood away from the door. She hadn’t said a word in at least ten minutes, so I peeked in to make sure she was OK, and got a faceful of steaming hot water for my trouble.

  Damn extendable showerheads. I turned away to grab a towel, and the door opened wider, her hand shooting out and grabbing me by my shirt. “And just where do you think you’re going, soldier?” she said, smiling. Her red hair cascaded down her wet, naked body, and I swallowed hard.

  “Absolutely nowhere, ma’am,” I said, stepping into the shower.

  A little while later, I was toweling off my hair as I walked out of the bathroom in my robe. Kim was standing against the living room wall, the Japanese kimono she loved so much clinging to her body. I wrapped my arms around her, dropping the towel onto the floor and resting
my chin on her shoulder. She pulled my arms up, holding them to her tightly, and as I brushed a lock of hair from her ear, I could see the sadness in her expression.

  “What is it, Kim?” I asked, concerned.

  “That’s why you didn’t answer my call earlier, isn’t it?” she answered, nodding toward the kitchen table. The candles had gone out, but the rest of the setup for what I’d planned as a nice romantic meal were still evident.

  “I’d hoped to surprise you. As it turns out, you surprised me, instead,” I said, kissing her neck and holding her close. “And what a surprise it was.”

  She laughed. “It’s not every day your wife comes home drunk on whiskey and smelling like a cigar factory, I guess?”

  I chuckled. “No, not exactly.”

  “I’m sorry, David.”

  “It’s OK.”

  “No, it isn’t. When you didn’t answer, I should’ve just come home.”

  “We’ll have lots more chances for romantic dinners, babe.”

  She turned in my arms, looking up at me with those deep green eyes. “We will, won’t we?” She asked it like a question, as though she wasn’t sure. She broke away, moving to sit on the couch, her feet tucked under her. “I learned something today.”

  I sat down on the chair at the end of the couch, taking one of her hands in mine. “Oh?”

  “Have you heard anything recently? About people being unhappy?”

  “No, not really. I mean, people talk, but…” I gave it a bit more thought, and realized that it seemed as though I had heard more than a few people talking. More than the usual bitching, too. “Although, now that you mention it…”

  “I think it’s bad, David. I talked to some people tonight that told me it’s much worse than either of us thought. We’re insulated—outsiders because we’re in command. They don’t want us to know, and so we can’t fix the problems. But we have a major problem. People are bored.”

  I knew what she was driving at, right away. “And when people get bored, they get antsy. And that… well, that’s just a recipe for even bigger problems. So, now that we know, how do we fix it?”

  “I have an idea, but I’m going to need your help. We need to get everyone working for a goal, again. I need to talk to Dr. Westman and the other shrinks, get some ideas from them on how we can move forward with a treatment, but I think I’ve got an idea. Give it a listen and tell me what you think?”

  “I’m all ears, babe.”

  “Good, because when you hear this, you’re gonna think I’m even crazier than I actually am.”

  I doubted it, but I listened anyway. As it turned out, she was right.

  I glanced over at Kim as we sat in front of the governor’s desk. Cool as a cucumber, like there was nothing special going on, Kim sat there unperturbed as the woman in charge of all of our lives looked over her very dangerous plan. I would’ve been a nervous wreck. I was a nervous wreck, and I’d only been involved in the last few steps of writing it up. It was crazy to send a group outside the bunkers at this point, even though it was just to look for supplies, but it was also necessary to give the men something to do.

  It didn’t help that Daniel was sitting in the corner, just waiting to be useful. Even now, ten years later, he still gave me the creeps. Not because he was a bad guy, but it just wasn’t natural to be that quiet all the time. I looked at the one concession he had made to society, the wedding ring on his finger. The matching ring on the governor’s left hand shone as brightly, and I didn’t even want to think about how that had happened.

  “I see you’ve got Dr. Westman’s vote,” said the governor. “Anyone else?”

  “Yes, ma’am. If you look there, you can see that nearly the entirety of the medical staff advised that something like this needed to be done, and in fact, Dr. Westman indicated that he’d proposed several ideas himself.”

  “He has. I rejected them as too dangerous.”

  “But Governor—”

  Gates raised her hand, bringing Kim’s protest to a stop. “I haven’t said no, Colonel.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Any civilians in this plan?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Kim said, and Gates frowned.

  I jumped in. “Ma’am, no civilians outside the bunker. They’ll be needed here to catalog inventory, find out what we need and to help store it once we return. We’ll also need most of the aircraft mechanics just to get the Skycranes back to flying condition.”

  Gates looked surprised. “They’re not in flying condition now?”

  I shook my head. “They’re in what is called ‘storage’ condition, ma’am. It’s minimal maintenance, designed to preserve the parts long-term. Oil is drained, some parts removed, etc. It’s like cleaning and oiling a gun you don’t intend to fire for a long, long time. Most of the aircraft and vehicles were put into storage mode, since no one thought we’d need them for twenty years or so. The Blackhawk and Stryker being obvious exceptions, of course.”

  Gates laid the folder on her desk, and put her chin on her clasped hands, eyes closed. I’d seen her do this from time to time, and knew she was thinking hard about whatever decision she was going to make. I took this as a good sign.

  “How long would it take to implement? To get everything up and running?”

  “A month. Two, tops,” said Kim. “Daniel can tell you, the buzz going around about this is good—”

  Gates eyes snapped open and speared Daniel in his seat in the corner.

  Daniel, for his part, looked completely unfazed. “I reported the rumors to you last week, Angela. Your exact words were ‘Don’t bother me with rumors, Daniel.’”

  Kim and I glanced at each other, but were careful to keep our amazement off our faces. Neither of us had ever heard Daniel refer to the governor as anything other than ‘ma’am’ or Governor. A grin, quickly covered, crept over Kim’s features, and I struggled to keep a similar one off of my own.

  Gates sighed, massaging the bridge of her nose. “That’s the problem with an assistant that has an eidetic memory,” she said, and smiled. “Even the worst of us deserve a little human forgetfulness.”

  Daniel said nothing, but smiled slightly. I’d never seen so much as a smirk from him before, and Kim and I looked at each other again.

  Well, well, well, I thought. He has feelings, after all. The governor has been good for him.

  Gates went on, “You wouldn’t be able to use all of the soldiers; we’ll need some stationed here, just in case.”

  “Yes, ma’am. But Gunny Rains has trained five hundred-plus security personnel, and we can draw from them. We’ve got more than enough guns, though we’re lacking somewhat in ammunition.”

  Gates smiled. “Gunny Rains has really come through for us, hasn’t he?”

  The rest of us smiled, too. Gunnery Sergeant Milford P. Rains had come out of retirement to lead the training of what he had often called ‘the sorriest bunch of low-life, shiftless, no-talent scum this side of Creation.’ Now numbering just over five hundred strong, the security force of Bunker One looked on the man as though he were God. Or, at least, a god.

  Gates sobered quickly, though. “How is it possible that we’re running low on ammunition? I thought practically all of Level Two…”

  “Eight years of nearly constant attacks have dwindled our reserves, ma’am,” I said. “We need more. If I had to guess, I’d say we’ll run out in about a year, maybe eighteen months if Beoshane starts back up again.”

  “And where will you get it? What about the other supplies?”

  Kim answered quickly. “Our first priority is to get over to Joint Base Lewis-McChord and see what’s left. There’s likely fuel, maybe some ammunition, who knows what.”

  “That may be a problem, ma’am,” said Daniel. “Highly-refined fuel, aviation fuel in particular, doesn’t last forever. Properly sealed and maintained, it might have lasted this long and still be usable, but there’s certainly no guarantees.”

  “It doesn’t really matter, Daniel,” Gat
es said. “We need to get people doing something. Even if it’s something that ultimately doesn’t work out like we hoped. And we’re all assuming Beoshane hasn’t taken over the base, too.”

  “Well, yes, we are assuming that, ma’am,” said Kim. “I don’t think it’s likely he’d have everything, though. It’s a big base, and unless you knew what you were looking for, you wouldn’t find most of it. Fortunately for us, we have the layout in the military database.”

  Gates took another look at the file before her, then closed it and set it to the side. “Very well, you have my authorization. Life is bad enough being underground for twenty years without making everyone crazy. What can I do to help?”

  “Just make the announcement, as we indicated in the plan, Governor. I’m sure Daniel can help you come up with something appropriate. I think you’ll be surprised how everyone will pull together on this.”

  “I hope so, Colonel.”

  The rotors of Alpha Squad’s Blackhawk turned slowly in the big hangar, the noise of its engines echoing and re-echoing and merging with that of the Skycrane warming up nearby. I had never gotten used to the weird shape of the Skycranes; they looked like they should either fall out of the sky or take off for the moon.

  A bulbous cockpit enclosed the pilot and copilot of the aircraft, and the rest was… well, barely there at all. So skinny that it was more a suggestion of a frame than a frame itself, the housing that held up the engines, the rotor and the spindly landing gear was long and thin, leading from the top of the cockpit all the way back to the tail rotor. It was like some futuristic sort of bug.

  Bug or not, the facts weren’t in dispute. The Sikorsky Skycrane could lift around twenty thousand pounds, which meant it could potentially lift two of the Blackhawk currently ahead of it in line, if we’d had another. That was a helluva machine, and the only way we could get so much of our bunker’s supplies loaded so quickly. I’d had drinks with one of the pilots once, and he told me what it had been like, flying for days on end transferring containers to the bunker. At one point, he’d realized that he and his copilot had been in their seats without moving for upwards of eighteen hours. When their CO overheard the chatter, he’d stood them down, ordering them to get some rest. They’d had to be helped out of the chopper, since their legs were numb from the waist down.