Years After Series | Book 1 | Nine Years After Read online

  The mayor placed both hands flat on the table, not exactly slapping it, but drawing all attention to him in a military manner and shutting down any more conversation before it started. “Stop talking around it, damn it all. Let’s get to the point. Mayfield and Danner, you’re needed to go outside. Up top. Outside. On the surface.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  They wanted us to go outside where the air and water were poison, radiation killed or twisted all living things, and the few surviving animals were dangerous monsters. Mayfield and me. Alone. Out there.

  The idea was hard to comprehend. Impossible was a better choice of words. Nobody had been outside since we had locked ourselves inside Deep Hole as the first of the bombs and missiles exploded overhead like the biggest Fourth of July in history. The explosions had been felt for days as we huddled together, expecting to die at any moment. All three hundred of us bonded as we huddled together during those frightful days, no matter our ages.

  I couldn’t remember anyone suggesting or even joking about leaving the sanctuary of Deep Hole. It was inconceivable. We were safe in our warren of tunnels in the ground surrounded by the solid granite of the mountain above. Outside lay death and destruction. We’d heard the stories all our lives.

  The bombs might not be exploding anymore but there was the destruction of cities, roving hordes of starving madmen and unknown diseases decimating anything alive. The EMP, a burst or Pulse of Electro-Magnetic radiation created by a nuclear explosion had destroyed all computers and devices that used computer chips. Nothing with a computer chip worked—no radios, phones, TVs, cars, and thousands of other items.

  That was not completely true. Older cars and trucks worked. Until they broke down and needed repair parts or fresh fuel. After a month or two, maybe as long as a year, a few vehicles would work. Roads would be blocked with stalled cars, barricades, fallen power poles and buildings, and more. Bodies were strewn everywhere. It was hell up there.

  My mind revolted at the ideas flooding into it and nearly shutting it down. It was all I could do to keep from shouting that they couldn’t make me go up there.

  Mayfield spoke first, before I embarrassed myself, “There must be more to your request that you haven’t shared.”

  “There is,” the mayor said. “Our records show eighteen other shelters were constructed in secret, all in the northwest, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. More are in other parts of the country, but those eighteen are our immediate concerns. We have no reason to believe they didn’t survive as we did, but the hardening of the communication networks failed with the repeated EMP attacks intended to destroy all computer components. We cannot contact any of them.”

  I said, “Because ours failed doesn’t mean the others did. Maybe we were right under an EMP event, or our hardening was improperly tested and theirs remained intact. The other sanctuaries might be trying to get in touch with us.”

  “Good point,” Sarge said. “We have the physical locations of each. Those shelters near Seattle, Everett, and Portland were far larger. We might immigrate to one of them and join forces.”

  Mayfield rolled her eyes like when she was young, and I said something silly.

  “What?” Sarge growled at her.

  “What good does that do if their women can’t have babies either? Does anyone have a possible explanation for infertility or the root cause? That is problem number one, I would think.”

  “Danner?” Sarge turned to me. “Input?”

  I said, “It seems like Mayfield has put her finger on the critical item. Why are there no births? Solve that problem and the others are manageable with artificial insemination and careful selection will help with interbreeding. The problems with other sanctuaries can wait a few years if needed, or they will solve them without our help.”

  “You do not want to go?” Sarge asked with heat and surging anger as he rose to his feet. “Are you refusing?”

  “Hell, no, I don’t want to go. I’m not crazy.”

  Mayfield shifted her position slightly and leaned away from me as if trying to remove herself from my presence, but as she did, her right foot contacted my left. It was not an accident. We both wore synthetic cotton booties, as did everyone. Her little toe came in contact with mine—and it twitched enough for me to feel. Nobody else would notice what she’d done. The twitch was a warning.

  Sarge leaned forward to intimidate me, his face contorted. “We are the four leaders of this colony. You breathe our air, eat our food, and yet refuse to take orders and help your friends and family?”

  I settled back in my chair but kept foot-contact with Mayfield. Crossing my arms over my chest, I held his gaze a short moment before speaking. “You asked if I wanted to go, not if I would. I gave you a fair and honest answer.”

  Mayfield’s toe twitched quickly in delight. At least, that’s the way I interpreted it. The tension in the room evaporated as if my misspeaking had been a complete misunderstanding.

  “That’s more like the boy I trained,” Sarge said as he resumed sitting with an air of satisfaction.

  Mayfield turned to the mayor and asked in a voice that sounded like her mouth was full of dry sand, “After completing our mission, how will we relay our findings to you, and how long before we will be welcome back inside?”

  He hesitated a fraction of a second too long. Whatever he said next would be a lie. His tone was as smooth as soft butter when he said. “We have a comm-link to the entrance hall above and of course, you will always be one of us. You will be our heroes.”

  Her toe twitched again, and I responded in kind. She knew he was lying about something. Worse, it was a big lie.

  They were sending us out to the barren surface to locate other shelters and seek help, true. However, the multitude of bombs and biologicals above had mutated into unknown abominations and that included dangerous microorganisms fiercer than any metamorphosed animal. If only one of those microbes returned inside with us, the shelter was doomed.

  They would never allow us to return. They couldn’t.

  My eyes found the locked door. The one I’d personally locked. I assumed that it had been to keep others out. That was wrong. There was probably a guard or two outside it, to keep Mayfield and me inside. If we left the meeting with the information already shared with us and passed it on, rumors would fly, and the results would endanger everyone in Deep Hole. A revolt might take place—and new leaders to take their places.

  We were never going back to our old lives and friends. That was a fact. If we refused the request to leave the sanctuary, we would die. I had no doubt of that. We would never pass through the door I’d locked, which I now saw as symbolic.

  My eyes drifted to a second door in the conference room that also stood closed, one I’d seldom passed through. It led to the mayor’s private office area where he’d scolded and counseled me a few times. Normally, he met with the leaders in there, planning for the good of all. In there, along the rear wall, were other doors. Where they went had never occurred to me to ask.

  Mayfield sat up straighter, but her foot remained in touch with mine. It was the touch of reality for us. She said to them with a sudden bright smile, “That’s good to hear. I’ve always wanted to be a hero. What and when do we need to prepare?”

  Our ex-teacher looked ready to spill tears for a moment, then regained control of her emotions. She fought the tears but failed. Twin tracks appeared on her cheeks. She didn’t bother to wipe them away and didn’t speak.

  The administrator quickly took over. “That has all been planned for you. We have, the four of us as a group, reviewed every detail of your upcoming venture and nothing has been eliminated or left to chance.” She paused to smile reassuringly.

  It didn’t convince me.

  Mayfield cut in quickly, in a way that suggested to me she already knew the answer, “Well then, when will we depart on this mission?”

  “Soon . . .” the administrator evaded, the phony smile slipping a little before being forced back into place as if it w
as a piece of molded plastic.

  Instead of looking at her while she talked, a woman that I intuitively distrusted, I’d kept my attention on the other three, all of whom were in the same field of view. With Mayfield’s questions, the mayor’s eyes had darted away, our teacher had flinched and followed that with a sniffle and tears, and the crinkles around Sarge’s eyes increased as he squinted slightly, as if not liking what was happening.

  My take was that if we were playing poker, all three of the ones I watched were bluffing or tossing in their hands as they gave up. I fought to control my expression. While I was watching them, they were watching the two of us, searching for clues to our true feelings so they would know how to proceed.

  The administrator said in an even tone, “We will supply you with clothing appropriate for the outside, as it used to be because we do not know what is out there now. Additional clothing for winter will be included, just in case. Food packs and pills to purify any water you need to drink are all there. You will also find have maps and even identification codes to identify yourselves at the other shelters you locate. And of course, weapons to protect yourselves.”

  We sat in silence.

  She continued, “That is for the second part of your mission. The first part is critical in that you must spend at least three days in the lobby of Deep Hole, or the entrance hall, as some call it. Use it as a temporary base of operations as you explore nearby. There is a wired speaker system similar to the all-call we use down here. Since it is only electric and has no computer modules, it still works—as you already know. Nothing with computer chips survived the EMPs . . . but you also know all that.”

  “I get it,” Mayfield said. “You want us to go up there and report back what we find via the speaker system. You want to know the living conditions up there. What plants and animals survived if any. I suppose you want us to report how high the radiation is, if the air is poison, and if the other one of us dies of some illness or malady.”

  The administrator bobbed her head quickly and dismissively as she smiled again, a fake smile, but one she wanted to put us at ease. They thought us stupid, was my guess. Or that smooth talk would convince us to sacrifice ourselves for the sake of the rest. I returned her smile and refused to wipe the accumulating sweat from my forehead. They wanted to know, above all else, if we would manage to survive three whole days, I realized.

  They were thinking about emerging from Deep Hole, if possible. We had to give our lives for the betterment of the sanctuary and the people we knew so that they might live. But there had to be more to it. More I didn’t see. Yet.

  My reaction was to leap from the chair, charge the four of them, and begin swinging and kicking. They were as much as passing a death sentence to us and sitting there calmly as if we were discussing what flavor algae to eat for dinner. Even if we managed to survive three days, our chances of reaching the first of the other nearby shelters were minimal at best. With no experience in the world outside, no knowledge of what dangers were out there, and the vague plan they offered, our chance of success was nil.

  Banishment was the only way for the four of them to gain valuable information about the surface. At our expense. If it was even possible to survive or travel to another sanctuary, why hadn’t any of the people from the other shelters arrived here?

  It didn’t matter. I was not going to leave. I crossed my arms over my chest and waited.

  Mayfield nudged my foot with her toe again. I glanced at her and found her eyes centered on the end of the table, where Sarge was sitting. With hooded eyes, she was looking under the table, near his knee.

  He didn’t know his hand was visible. It clutched a hypodermic needle, his fingers white with tension. If he wasn’t careful the glass vial would break from the pressure of his tense fingers.

  Instantly, the realization came to me that it was filled with a sedative, not a poison. If we fought their plan or got violent, they would inject us and then carry us up the metal steps to the heavy iron door and place us on the stone floor along with the supplies—and a code to unlock the outer door, the one that went outside to hell. If that happened, we had no choice but to leave.

  It also struck me that any or all the others were probably similarly armed with needles, or perhaps they held actual weapons, but they didn’t want us injured or we couldn’t do what they wanted. I suspected there were the guards at the door ready to charge inside help if we resisted, I felt sure of that. We were trapped.

  The meeting had been to both inform us and capture us unharmed. Like mice in a trap, they had total control of us. Or thought they did. The four of them were old. I was a strapping sixteen and even without Mayfield’s help, I felt I could defeat them all in battle—and my temper was rising. If I lost the fight, the worst that would happen was what they already had planned for us.

  All that came in a flash as my attention drifted away from the conversation and my battle plan. The edges of my vision blurred. I blinked to clear things, then squinted before drifting off again. Grayness was descending and my body felt weak. I turned to Mayfield as she looked at me in comprehension as she too understood what was happening.

  It was instantly obvious. The water they had placed so conveniently near us had been drugged. The sweet rolls were dry and salty to encourage us to drink. I had finished half a glass and all they had to do was wait for the effects to take over while they delayed. My head sagged.

  I fought to stand and ball my fists and lost that battle as all went black.

  I heard Mayfield asking, why. I heard her curse them with emotion. I sank deeper into the blackness until it was as if my ears closed, as well as my eyes.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I woke as Mayfield shook me. As anticipated, we were lying on the concrete landing at the top of the metal stairs that had replaced the elevator years ago, an open iron door stood before us. The door at the bottom of the stairs would be locked and we wouldn’t have a code for it, however, the code to the lock in front of us was printed by hand in large, clear numbers on the sheet of paper she held.

  My mind was fuzzy, my eyes wanted to close again. Mayfield shook me harder as if that would make the drugs wear off quicker. A groan escaped from my mouth but no words. She seemed to get the idea and left me alone. I returned to the blackness.

  Later, my eyes flashed opened and found Mayfield sitting with her back to the door, waiting. “Welcome back.”

  I sat. My mouth was as dry as the concrete we sat on. The act of sitting up had almost made me puke, but nausea quickly receded. “Must have drunk more of that damned water than you, Princess.”

  She rolled her eyes at me calling her that again. In nearly every competition since childhood, we’d come in first and second. Second and first. About equally. It was the way we interacted. Only I had the name to call her to piss her off.

  I had consumed more tainted water. As a result, I’d swallowed more of the drug that put me to sleep sooner and for a longer time.

  Mayfield remained sitting, knees were drawn up to her chin, face expressionless. “I went down and checked the door below. I had to. It’s locked. I pounded on it and nobody came. We can’t get back inside our home.”

  “Did you expect to?”

  “Checked to be sure. While waiting for you to come around, I started to wonder if the door was open, if they could be that cruel to send us out there to die. Then my mind sort of shifted gears and I wondered if I would go back inside if that door had opened. Or, if I even wanted to go back.”

  “Do you?”

  “I don’t think so. Not after what they’re doing to us.”

  “I see.”

  “They’re tossing us to the lions. Killing us.” More than anger was in her words. Venom better described it. I’d never heard her talk like that.

  “Bait,” I said while ignoring the pounding in my head. “They’re putting us out there to see if we live or die. That is what they want to know. How long we last. Beyond that, I think they are aware that people are going to figure
out the lack of babies soon and they will be justifiably upset with the present leadership. Rumors are probably already starting, so they took this step. This way, they can say they are aware of the problem and sent us to find help.”

  “People will miss us and start asking questions within a day or two. The timing is odd.”

  “Not if some of them are already asking questions. You know how rumors fly. This is our leaders protecting themselves.” I drew in a huge breath and let it out slowly, hoping to clear the last of the cobwebs.

  She pursed her lips and said in a voice I’d never heard from her, “They want us, no they ordered us to report what we find on the surface to them—if we are alive. Tell them whatever is outside. Do you feel like doing that?”

  “No.”

  The tears streamed down her cheeks. “Me neither. Danner, they will never let us back in there, no matter what. You know that, right? Too many rumors and possible transmittable diseases, besides we’d tell everyone how they kicked us out with the expectation we would die. They never liked you, and they sacrificed me to be expelled in the wilderness with you.”

  I caught the caustic humor and decided not to spar with her for once. “Yes, to part of what you said. However, I think it was me they like and feared me becoming too popular and taking their jobs from them. Seriously, you were on the track of becoming and replacing one of the four leaders, and I say that believing it to be true. In a few years, you would have taken the place of one of them and that scares them.”

  She looked directly at me, her expression fierce, her voice fiercer. “If you even go near that communication speaker in the lobby to tell them anything, I’ll do my best to kill you.”