by Tom Abrahams
“Whoa!” Chandra held up his hand in surrender. “I didn’t—”
Clayton turned away from Chandra and started back to his table, but the man grabbed his arm and stopped him. Clayton jerked free of his hold.
“I can help you,” Chandra said softly.
Clayton tugged on his shirt sleeve at the cuff and straightened it. The woman, the strawberry blonde, was standing with Chandra now.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “Is everything okay?”
Chandra kept his gaze on Clayton. There was a deep sadness in the man’s eyes. The deep creases at his temples and across his forehead revealed recurring pain and unrelenting stress.
Clayton squared his shoulders. “How can you help me? How do you know who I am?”
Chandra, one hand still raised in peace, stepped closer to the astronaut. “I know you’re an astronaut because I heard about you,” he said under his breath. “I know you’re here against your will. I would guess you want to leave. I want to leave too.”
“You didn’t answer my questions.”
Chandra glanced over Clayton’s shoulder. He spoke through pressed lips. “Not here. We have company.”
“Everything okay?” Clayton’s guard asked, approaching the trio. “I saw a little scuffle. You cut in line, Shepard?”
Clayton nodded. “Sorry about that,” he said to Chandra. “Won’t happen again.”
Chandra’s eyes skipped from Clayton to the guard and back. “I’ll come find you if it does.”
Clayton took the hint. “Go ahead,” he dared the scientist. “Room twenty-nine. Building four.”
The guard tugged on Clayton’s shoulder. “C’mon,” he said. “You don’t need added attention.”
Clayton gave Chandra a knowing glance and then followed the guard back to his table. “I didn’t get my granola,” he complained. “I’m still hungry.”
“You’ll have to wait until lunch,” said the guard. “It’s time to head back to your room. You’ve already had too much excitement for one meal.”
***
Chandra watched the astronaut leave the cafeteria without returning to his table. “Shepard,” he mumbled. “Clayton Shepard!”
“What was that about?” asked Sally. “I’m lost.”
Chandra slid back into the buffet line and grabbed a yeast roll. He set it on his plate next to the eggs and looked at his breakfast. Suddenly, he wasn’t hungry.
“Vihaan?” Sally asked. “Who was that?”
Chandra took a glass of orange juice and led Sally to an empty table. He noticed the crowd was beginning to filter from the room. He offered Sally a seat, slid into his, and then pulled the chair close to hers.
“That was Clayton Shepard,” he said. “He was an astronaut on the International Space Station.”
“So?”
“He was on the station when the first CME hit,” said Chandra, working hard to contain his excitement. “He managed to leave the station and get back to Earth. Now he’s here.”
Sally waved her hands with frustration and pursed her lips. “I’m missing something here, Vihaan. You’re not making sense.”
Chandra exhaled and slowed down. “Somehow, he landed near here. I don’t know the details. But he’s being held here against his will. He’s in some sort of cell. You saw he had a uniformed guard with him.”
“Maybe he’s dangerous,” Sally suggested.
“No,” Chandra said, “he’s an astronaut. He’s not dangerous.”
“Why was he mad at you? Had you met him before?”
“No,” said Chandra. “It’s a long story. It has to do with the CME and data that my people gave to—it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t know me.”
“You said you could help him. Help him do what?”
“Escape.” As soon as he said the word, he regretted it.
Sally’s expression morphed. Her features squeezed tight. Her eyes disappeared beneath her brow. “Wait, what?” she said, raising her voice. “What are you talking about?”
Chandra placed his hand atop hers. “Shhh, don’t call attention to our conversation.”
Sally looked around the room and then glared at Chandra. “Look, you seemed like a nice guy. You have a sadness in your eyes that makes you…approachable. But you’re freaking me out here. I don’t think—”
Chandra pulled his hand away. “Okay, that’s fine. I’m not going to try to convince you. I shouldn’t have said anything. I don’t know you. Never mind.”
Chandra pushed himself from the table, leaving the eggs, the roll, the juice, and Sally behind. He hustled out of the cafeteria to the elevator. He stepped inside, cursing himself for having said anything. He didn’t know her. Now she could go to their superiors and get him in trouble.
The uniformed guard attending the elevator interrupted his mental self-flagellation. “Where are you going?”
“Sorry,” said Chandra. “Transfer level, please.”
The guard hit the button, but before the elevator doors closed, a hand slid between them and they reopened. It was Sally. She stepped inside and stood next to Chandra without acknowledging him.
“Transfer level, please.”
The guard pressed the button and closed the doors. The elevator whisked them up a level and glided to a stop. The doors whooshed open and Chandra waited for Sally to exit first. She stepped into the corral and walked a half-dozen steps toward the train tracks. Once the elevator doors shut behind Chandra, she turned around and stopped.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have talked to you that way.”
Chandra kept walking. “It’s fine,” he said. “Not a problem.”
Sally spun on her heels as he passed her and walked at his pace. “You’re mad at me.”
Chandra glanced at her as he approached the tracks. “I’m not mad. I don’t know you, Sally. We met yesterday.”
Sally frowned. “Look, we’re going to be here a while. We both need friends. I want to be your friend.”
Chandra sighed. The tracks rumbled as the next train approached. He could hear its engine growing louder as it neared the building two platform. He stepped toward the edge of the floor closest to the tracks.
Sally touched his shoulder. “Can we be friends?”
He looked over at her. Her eyes were wide with remorse. Her long eyelashes flicked as she looked up at him and brushed the hair from her forehead. Chandra was good at a lot of things—math, science, technology. He wasn’t good at reading women. He never had been. His wife, Anila, had called him oblivious to her advances. She joked that if she hadn’t made the first move, they’d never have exchanged more than pleasantries.
Something, though, told him he could trust Sally. Who could blame her for being freaked out at the mention of escaping their hi-tech refuge? He was certain that ninety-nine percent of the people living in the bunkers thought the setup entirely benevolent. Ninety-nine percent of them didn’t know Treadgold.
“Okay,” he said. “We can be friends.”
The train roared to the platform and a gust of wind blew Sally’s hair into her eyes. Chandra reached out and brushed it from her face. She smiled. The train screamed to a stop and they boarded, the only ones in their cabin. The doors shut and the train accelerated. An automated voice filled the space.
“You are departing building two,” it said pleasantly enough. It was different than the sterile voice he’d heard the day before. “Our next stop is building one, followed by building five. If building one is your destination, please prepare your belongings and be sure you have possession of your DiaTab, DiaWatch, and keycard.”
Chandra had his arm wrapped around a stainless floor-to-ceiling pole in the middle of the car. “Why do you think we have keycards?” he asked, shaking his wrist. “We have the watches and the tablets. I mean, they could just use the technology in those devices. We could swipe them across the entry panels. We wouldn’t need the cards.”
“I hadn’t thought about it.”
Chandra shrugg
ed. “It seems redundant.”
“Yeah,” Sally agreed. “I guess so.”
They rode in silence through the first three stops. Uniformed soldiers climbed aboard at buildings five and four. Sally smiled at them when they boarded. They ignored her.
The automated voice chimed through the cabin. “Our next stop is building three, followed by building two. If building three is your destination, please prepare your belongings and be sure you have possession of your DiaTab, DiaWatch, and keycard.”
“This is us,” Sally said.
The train slid to a smooth stop and the doors whooshed open. Two of the guards exited the car. Sally and Chandra stepped off the train and walked together to the elevator, taking it down four floors to the “open/intact” level.
Sally walked close to Chandra as they made their way along the hall toward the T-intersection at its end. When they reached it, Sally paused.
“What are your plans today?” she asked.
“I’ll go get ready for work,” he said. “I’ll spend most of the day in the lab, I guess. I’ll see you at dinner?”
She smiled broadly. “Sounds great,” she said. “I really am sorry, Chandra.”
“It’s fine. See you later.”
He waved goodbye and walked toward his section of the floor. When he reached the end of the hallway, he looked back over his shoulder. Sally was gone. He retraced his steps and hustled to the elevator, pressing the button like an arcade game.
“C’mon,” he said, urging the elevator to arrive.
The doors finally opened and he reentered the car. The guard raised an eyebrow and smirked.
“Forget something?”
“No,” said Chandra. “I’m late for work. Transfer corral, please.”
The doors slid shut and within minutes Chandra was back on the train headed to building four. Three stops later he was almost there. He was sprinting from the train by the time the doors had finished opening.
The elevator was already open when he arrived. “Level five, please.”
The guard pressed the button for the lowest level. The doors slid shut and the elevator lumbered downward. Chandra was sweating. His heart rate was elevated, his mouth dry.
He was certain the guard would ask for some sort of clearance, but he didn’t. He was sure he’d need to swipe his card or flash his DiaTab. He didn’t. The elevator slowed to a stop and its doors opened to reveal a large dimly lit space. Stencils painted on the wall provided vague directions and Chandra followed them along a narrow hallway until he reached another large space. On either side of the space were six doors. At the far end, another hallway led to what Chandra assumed was another set of cells. The rooms were consecutively numbered in descending order beginning with the number thirty. Across from it was room twenty-nine. Chandra looked over his shoulder into the corridor through which he’d just speed-walked and approached the astronaut’s room.
He knocked on the door and pressed his cheek against it. “Hey,” he called, trying not to speak too loudly, “it’s me. I’m the guy from the cafeteria. I’m here to help you.”
From behind the door he could hear shuffling and footsteps. The astronaut was coming to the door.
“I can’t let you in,” said Clayton.
“It’s okay,” said Chandra. “I’m here to help. My name is—”
“No, I can’t let you in because I can’t unlock the door,” said Clayton. “I’m a prisoner, remember?”
Chandra sighed. “Oh, I didn’t think about that.”
“You can’t open the door?”
Chandra tried the handle. He took out his keycard and swiped it across the magnetic pad on the wall. He held up his DiaWatch and touched it to the pad. Nothing worked.
“Sorry,” said Chandra. “I don’t have access.”
“Then how are you supposed to help me?”
Chandra looked around the space. There weren’t any cameras, at least none he could see, and there wasn’t any other noise, aside from the hiss of the cool air circulating through the ventilation system overhead. If there were other prisoners, they’d be banging on their doors by now.
“I think we’re alone,” said Chandra. “Have you seen any other prisoners?”
“Hostages, you mean?” Clayton corrected. “No. I think I’m the only one for now.”
Chandra considered Clayton’s terminology. It was more appropriate, and it applied to almost everyone in the bunker system whether they knew it or not.
“We’re all hostages,” said Chandra. “That’s my take. That’s why I want to help you out of here. I want to leave too.”
“I don’t understand,” said Clayton. “I’ve got a family. I need to get home. That’s why I want to leave. Why would you want out of here? You’ve got shelter, food, protec—”
“This place isn’t what it appears to be,” said Chandra. “This is some sort of government attempt at depopulation. They want to start over with a new society. They want the people on the surface to cannibalize each other and—”
“Cannibalize?”
“Figuratively,” said Chandra. “They want to control and eliminate as much of the outside world as they can. That’s just what I know. I’m sure there’s more that—”
Clayton banged on the door and Chandra jumped back, his heart racing.
“You have got to get me out of here!” said Clayton. “I have got to get home.”
Chandra took a step closer to the door and touched it with his fingertips. Clayton’s anxiety and frustration were palpable, as if he could feel it oozing through the door.
“I’ll get you out of here,” Chandra promised.
“If you can’t get me out of the room, how do you expect to get us both out of this underground labyrinth?”
“I’ll figure it out,” Chandra answered.
He ran his hands through his hair and scratched the crown of his head. He stepped away from the door and looked over his shoulder again. A feeling of dread was growing stronger, a sense that he was running out of time. He thought about the people he’d met. Who could help him? Not his boss. Treadgold would do everything he could to keep everyone underground and in the dark. He couldn’t trust Sally, not yet. Besides, her expertise was telemetry and guidance. She wouldn’t have access to anything that could help him inside the bunkers. Maybe once they were back on the surface she could help.
Van Cleaf? No. She was every bit a part of the scheme as was Treadgold. He didn’t know her anyhow. He only knew her name.
There was Henry Rector, the lab supervisor. He seemed too squirrelly to be any help, even if he was sympathetic to the cause.
Chandra muttered to himself, “Who else? Who else?”
“What?” asked Clayton. “I can’t hear what you’re saying.”
“Sorry,” said Chandra. “I’m just trying to figure out who might be willing to help me with the security system. I need—” Then it hit him.
Bert Martin!
Bert Martin was the Australian security system analyst. He’d seemed nice enough when they’d met outside the Jeppesen Terminal. He’d been as anxious as Chandra. It was true he didn’t know Bert much better than anyone else, but at least he had the necessary expertise.
“What?” asked Clayton. “You stopped talking.”
Chandra pressed his hands and cheek against the door. “I’ve got an idea,” he said excitedly. “I think I know someone who might be able to help us.”
“Who?”
“I don’t want to say it aloud,” said Chandra. “I’ll be back. I promise. I’m going to get us both out of here.” Chandra started to back away from the door.
“Hey!” said the astronaut. “What’s your name?”
“Vihaan Chandra. You can call me Vihaan.”
“I’m Clayton,” said the astronaut. “Clayton Shepard.”
“I know,” said Chandra. “You’re the spaceman.”
***
Clayton banged his fists on the door. “You’re the spaceman,” he whispered to himself. “ I�
��m the idiot who wasted time and risked my life trying to rescue two dead crewmates.”
He backed away from the door and crossed his room toward the desk. He clenched his fingers into tightly wound fists and then flexed them outward. He wanted to punch somebody.
The spaceman.
Clayton paced in the room. He was stuck here, and as much as he could blame others for his predicament, he knew deep down it was his own doing.
He should have evacuated the ISS the minute the power blinked. He’d repeatedly compromised his own life for the sake of two dead men, taking an ill-advised spacewalk that defied his training, carrying their bodies into the Soyuz, and then dragging them across a glacier. He’d unwittingly attracted wolves with their decaying corpses. Worse than all of that, however, was the time he’d wasted.
He’d spent hours aboard the ISS, awaiting the right pressurization before taking the walk and then hours more acclimating to the station once he’d returned. He’d taken hours more to traverse the icy descent from the frozen glacier field than necessary, dragging a makeshift travois with an injured leg susceptible to infection.
Every step along the way he’d taken actions that were contrary to what his mission should have been, should still be: getting home to Jackie, Marie, and Chris. Had he done what he was trained to do, what his instinct should have been, he might be home now. He certainly wouldn’t be a hostage stuck five or six stories underground. He’d have avoided the second coronal mass ejection, or at the least he would have crash-landed in Texas somewhere much closer to home.
For a brilliant man who loved his family, he hadn’t acted like either. He’d been selfish, off-task, and stupid.
He stopped pacing and sat on the edge of his bed. There was a growing ache over his right eye and along the right side of his head. Clayton squeezed his eyes closed and took a deep breath.
He pictured Jackie with the kids, all of them cursing his name for not having come home yet. He could see them in the house, eating by candlelight and sleeping together in the large California king bed in the master bedroom.
He could see Jackie giving the children chores to keep them occupied. Assuming there was no power, she’d have them cleaning the kitchen after meals and taking out the trash so it didn’t pile up in the house.
