‘70’ loomed before me. I almost walked past it, so used to taking the next flight. Hillary stopped me with a hand to my shoulder. I reached out, and pulled the door in. We trudged inside, weary from the climb.
The final door loomed. I weakly pulled the door open and gaped. I only noticed one thing before I collapsed. The space had transformed in the twelve hours we had been gone.
There was plastic in the way. I pawed at it as I sank to my knees. All I could comprehend was pain. My face, my mouth and nose, my throat all the way to my stomach and lungs felt like they were all frozen in the worst desert in the world.
I tried to say something. Anything. All that came out was a horrid rasp.
I keeled forward, hand still outstretched. The carpet met my face, cold and unforgiving. Something rustled, and warm air washed over me. I remembered nothing more.
15
June 15, 2033
Seattle, Washington, USA
70th floor, Illeni Building
-53°F
0630 Hours
I woke up slowly. The first thing I registered was pain, all over my body. I groaned softly. Even that hurt.
Light barely filtered in through my eyes. I cracked them open, seeing nylon over my head. I looked around, taking in the tent around me.
I shifted my weight a little, realizing I was in a sleeping bag. My head ached something horrid. I muffled a groan as I tried to sit up. My legs shrieked with pain.
I shook from the effort, and the sleeping bag rustled against the fabric of the tent. The door unzipped loudly and Linda poked her head in the tent.
“Hey, you’re up. You slept for... ten hours? Anyway, give me just a moment, I’m sure you’re hurting.”
I blinked. The next thing I knew, Linda was sitting next to me.
“Good, you’re up again. You passed out for a good ten minutes. Take this, it should help.” She held out her hand.
I pulled my arms free from the sleeping bag. My face contorted with the pain of moving. My arms and back screamed now, protesting every movement.
When I opened my hand, she dispensed a couple of small pills into it. I looked closer, noting the round brown shapes. Ibuprofen, the workhorse of the military. She handed me a bottle of water.
I tried to prop myself up, but gasped as my core muscles spasmed. Linda put a helping hand under my shoulder, easing me up. I tossed the pills in my mouth, then took the water and slugged back as much as I could bear.
A little bit of water dribbled down my chin, but I was too tired to wipe at it.
“Easy Dante. You’re badly dehydrated from that trip.”
I nodded weakly. Then I drank the rest of the bottle, taking a little more time to prevent spills. She eased me back down, and I coughed a little.
“You’ve only been back for a few hours. Get some more rest, you’re going to need it. I’ll come back in a bit with more water.”
I looked at her, noting the care and concern in her eyes. I nodded once more.
“Thanks, Lin,” I rasped out. She smiled kindly. I blinked, but couldn’t open my eyes again. Gravity hauled me down. My entire body was made of lead. I drifted off to sleep once more.
The next time I woke, it was to the sounds of pans rattling. The sound carried well in the open office, and made my head pound. The rave going on inside my head didn’t let up.
I eased myself up, remembering the acute pain from my previous awakening. A quick mental inventory showed that while everything still hurt, nothing was excruciating.
My shoulders and back were still quite sore from the backpack, and my legs were displeased with having climbed seven hundred feet with an extra sixty pounds. My head ached, probably from the dehydration.
Everything hurt, right down to my pinkies. I wasn’t even sure how that was possible.
I threw the sleeping bag open, exposing myself to the air. Quite literally, to my surprise, because I wasn’t wearing pants. I was sure I had been when I got back to the 70th floor. My eyes adjusted to the extremely dim light. I could make out a lump in the corner opposite where my head had been.
I reached over, accidentally knocking over something hard and plastic. I instinctively fumbled for it. The flashlight flicked on, nearly blinding me. I grabbed it and pointed it away from my face. Spots swam in my vision for a moment.
When I could see again, I looked over the flashlight in the reflected light. I could see a seam on the body, and experimentally tugged with my other hand. The case cracked open slightly, spilling light in all directions.
The flashlight could transform into a lantern. I set it up to allow the minimum light possible, and put it on the floor. With the new illumination, I could see inside the tent a little better.
Tucked into the corner, the lump turned out to be my slacks. I pulled them toward me, finding a water bottle neatly laid on top.
I quickly drank the entire water bottle, then pulled the pants over. I stopped when I heard two people begin speaking just outside my tent.
“What happened? They all collapsed as soon as they got here,” Linda said.
“I don’t know. They were gone longer than they should have been. And missing one,” replied Jessie quietly.
“Tracy still hasn’t come back?” asked Linda.
“There’s nothing we can do about that except tell the other parties to keep an eye open.”
“Fine. But why are you hovering around his tent?”
“He’s the only family I have,” said Jessie, coolly.
“You’re not his family, you’re his boss,” came the hissed reply.
“Linda, I’ve known him for ten years. I was there when he lost his parents. He was there when I lost mine. We don’t have siblings. All we have is each other. There’s no romance, so you don’t have to worry about that. He’s like a dumb older brother to me.”
“So you just watch out for him?”
“Always have, always will.”
I felt bad for eavesdropping, but they chose to speak right outside of my tent. Then they fell quiet, and I set about getting ready again.
I shimmied into the pants. I stood as best as I could to get the pants up, and buttoned them. I didn’t see my belt anywhere in the tent though.
It was at that point that I realized the tent was remarkably warm. I vaguely recalled feeling warm air before collapsing at the door to the office.
The zipper on the front of the tent made a ton of noise as I pulled it up. The doors opened, sagging inward. I stood free of the tent, and realized it had been tucked into the remains of my cubicle.
The desk and all electronics had been torn out, leaving the walls bare. As a result, the walls acted as baffles and killed most of the sound coming into the tent. When I stood, it seemed like sound reentered the world for me.
At the entrance to my cubicle a single water bottle sat on the wall. I grabbed it and started to drink the water while I looked around. People were calmly talking, shuffling around. At the east end I could see lines of people waiting for their turn in one of the bathrooms.
A few people were in the former break area. It had been partially cordoned off and was set up as a kitchen. Burners lined the counters, cooking food. Ice chests were gathered on one side, frequently opened for more supplies.
Continuing to scan, I looked the other way. Jessie’s office on the west end was bustling with activity. Boxes were being pulled out, broken open, and inventoried. The goods were brought back into the storage room, or into the server room.
Then I noticed that lanterns hung from the ceiling. All were turned low, but provided adequate illumination to guide the way through the ranks of cubicles.
I spotted Linda walking out of Jessie’s office, carrying a large box. She saw me standing and stretching. She put the box down, and hurried over.
“Dante, you’re awake.” She smiled gently as she walked up. I nodded, still sleep-weary.
“I’m really glad. You worried us by passing out like that. You must be starving. Food should be ready any min
ute, over in the kitchen area.” I felt like a bobble head as I kept nodding.
“How long was I out for? Seems like days,” I said in a sleep-thick voice.
Linda checked a watch on her wrist, she hadn’t worn it the last time I saw her. “It’s nine am, I mean 'o-nine-hundred'. So yeah, about ten hours. You’re the first one to wake up. You guys all had terrible dehydration and fatigue. Speaking of, you probably need more water.”
“Fatigue? Sure, that's a long climb, but that seems like a long time for four relatively fit people.”
“You were gone for twelve hours, moving constantly, in circumstances you are not used to. It's freezing out there, your body is adjusting to have more heat all the time. You probably didn't eat much, you definitely didn't have enough water. Add on the weight of the backpack and exercise you're not ready for or used to. Yeah, you were very fatigued. I'm surprised you're walking now. Back in a moment.”
I stood still, trying to hold myself together as she briskly walked back to the storage room. She emerged a moment later, two water bottles in her hands, and Jessie in tow.
Linda set one bottle on top of the cubicle wall and cracked the other open for me. I took it and slugged down half the bottle right then and there.
“Easy. You’ll give yourself a stomach ache,” cautioned Linda.
I wiped my mouth with my arm, then said, “Thanks.”
“Alright, Dante. What happened?” Jessie looked impatient, eyebrow cocked, and hand on hip.
“First off, did Tracy make it back yet?”
Jessie and Linda met eyes for a moment. There was some unspoken communication there.
The tension that had been between them for as long as they had known each other was seemingly gone.
“Linda? Jessie? Hello?”
“Yeah, Dante. Tracy is still missing.” Jessie said as she finally looked back at me.
“She can’t be, she came back up here after Geno fell through the floor.”
“He did WHAT?” Jessie and Linda replied at the same time.
“When we were exploring floor ‘31’, Geno barged ahead and was looking at a fire pit—”
“You found survivors?”
“No, Jessie. Let me tell the story,” I said with some exasperation. She nodded.
“Right,” I continued. “Geno was walking to the fire pit, which only had embers left. He slipped on some ice, and fell. Hillary followed after him, while Larry and I stayed at the door. Something seemed off. Then the building made some weird noises, and they fell through the floor. Neither one was badly injured, though Hillary took a knock to her head.”
“Okay, and where was Tracy in all of this?”
“That’s when she went missing. We went to the next floor down to check on them, and she was gone. We searched for a moment, but left a note and continued on after she didn’t turn up in the next ten or fifteen minutes.”
Jessie stared at me for a minute. “So you had two injured people and one missing, and you pressed on?”
“Well, Larry looked them over and said they were fine. We watched over Geno and Hillary the whole trip. They’re troopers. But we didn’t realize Tracy was missing, and we needed the stuff we grabbed.”
“That’s still irresponsible, Dante. Look, nobody has been able to find her. We sent a second team as soon as your backpacks were unloaded, and they only took about four hours. Seems you have quite the setup down there. The third team just got back and swapped for the fourth about two hours ago.”
I nodded. Our trip had several unexpected hitches, it made sense that other teams could manage the same trip in far less time.
“Well, it seemed like the right choice at the time,” I started to defend myself. Jessie shot me a look before continuing.
“All trips now go with protein bars and water. Nobody has come back injured, just sore. A trip buys you out of a day’s work. Everybody is helping out now, either cleaning up the office, cooking, or watching the kids. Larry was the last of you to pass out. He’s pretty tough. He was the one who explained your shower idea. Well, most of it. We were wondering why you all looked like you had tentacles.”
Then Jessie paused, thinking for a moment, glancing at Linda. Linda was the one who spoke first. “Do you normally sleep talk? You kept it up most of the last night. Something about something in the wind. Couldn’t get you to respond.”
“No, I’ve never sleep talked. At least, nobody has ever told me I do.”
“Alright. Well, your team got the first tents, since you made the effort. Oh, and you can probably skip the line for the shower this one time. It’s a wildly popular solution. We had to institute a five minute rule for everybody, otherwise people were taking too long.”
“Yeah, thanks. I think I was sweating the whole time I was in the sleeping bag, could definitely use a shower.”
Jessie walked away at that point, apparently to give Linda and I some time.
Linda took a moment, and quietly started talking. “I’m really glad you’re okay. I was worried when you had been gone for the whole day. Listen, go grab a shower and I’ll prepare a plate of food for you. Meet you back over here in ten?”
My stomach rumbled at the thought of food. “Yeah, thanks.”
Linda and I walked most of the way to the kitchen area, then I broke off to the men’s room. There was a line standing outside, each holding a towel.
“Shit, I don’t have a towel,” I muttered as I approached. Brandon was next in line, towering over everybody else.
“Dude, your shower idea rocks. Good to see you up. Go ahead and take mine, it’s clean. I’ll grab another.”
“You guys don’t mind me cutting the line?”
The group muttered assent as a whole, and I gratefully took Brandon’s towel. He walked off, maybe to grab a second towel. The door was opened by one of the guys in the office I didn’t know well. He was toweling his hair off, and nodded to me.
I nodded back and walked in. Steam billowed around in the room, showing little air currents that were normally invisible to the eye.
The mirrors were opaque with steam, but I wasn’t interested in shaving. Never had enjoyed it, and the end of the world seemed as good of an excuse to start a beard as any.
The farthest sink had a hose securely taped to the faucet. I turned on the hot water to full, marveling at the power it had. I could hear the hose fill, watching it sag with the weight. Then I heard the water start to spill out of the plastic shower head and hit the floor. Steam rose from the tiles.
I reached through the curtain and felt the water for temperature. It was almost unbearably hot, just the way I liked it.
There was a privacy curtain hung between the shower and the wall, using extra PVC pipes as supports. I stepped in, quickly undressing. Then I stepped through the side panel and let the water hit my back.
The heat felt amazing on my muscles. I knew I was short on time, recalling what Linda had told me about the time limit. At my feet was a bottle of body wash. I grabbed it and poured a healthy glob into my other hand.
Once I had the bottle back on the floor, I set about quickly washing myself. As I was rinsing off the soap, a voice shouted into the bathroom.
“Yo, Dante, time’s up. We only get five minutes man.”
“Yeah, stepping out now. One moment.”
I leaned through the curtain and shut off the water. Then I grabbed the towel from on top of my clothes, and dried off. A moment later, I was dressed and heading out of the bathroom. Brandon nodded at me as he walked in.
“Dante, throw the towel over the side of your cubicle. Should be warm enough now that it’ll dry on its own.”
“Yeah, thanks man. And thanks for letting me go first.”
The door shut before Brandon could reply. I continued over to my cubicle. Linda was waiting for me, with Eddie seated next to her. They had a lantern on low between them. She looked up and saw me. She waved me over.
I sat next to her and she uncovered a plate, handing it over to me. It had eggs, bac
on, and even sausage. I looked around for a fork, as Linda laughed.
She slyly pulled a plastic fork out of her sleeve and handed it over. I gave her the stink eye, then tucked into my food. Eddie laughed a little at our antics, then went back to working on a Lego model.
Hiking up and down seventy floors, setting up a few systems necessary for life in the new world, and sleeping for ten hours had evidently worked up an appetite. I listened to Linda as I ate.
“The showers were set up maybe fifteen minutes after you guys were back. Brandon had already put the triple walls up earlier in the day. After they were up, he narrowed the aisles between each of the cubicles. Then started taking out all the electronics and desks from the cubes. He ended up dumping the computers across the hall in the empty office.”
I nodded to show I was still following. The last of the bacon disappeared into my mouth.
“He stacked the desks near the kitchen. Figured we could find a way to put them together to make tables. He was right, and we found hammers and nails in the storage room.”
I looked around wildly. In my sleep-addled state I had completely missed those changes. Linda laughed at my comical overreaction.
“Okay, guess I was a little tired. Didn’t even notice the tables,” I said.
She laughed, then continued. “As soon as you were back, we tucked your tent into your cubicle. Same for Larry, Geno, and Hillary. You all snoozed away on the floor while we set up. Jessie made sure nobody took pictures.”
“Who was trying to take pictures?”
“Nobody, that’s what I’m saying. Jessie wouldn’t let anybody get close, except me because of my medical background. Brandon and a few others set up the tents which fit the cleared cubicles perfectly. Then we put sleeping bags in and what little personal effects you guys had. After that, each person was dragged in and put into a sleeping bag.”
“So someone took my pants off for me?”
Linda blushed a little. “Yeah, you were muttering in your sleep. Kept trying to take them off, but weakly shoved me when I tried to help. It was kind of hilarious. So I eventually got you situated, and into your sleeping bag. Then you didn’t move for like six hours.”
Winds of Darkness Page 9
