High Pressure System: First Season Underground Read online

  “Who is part of the patrol? Do we have a say in who is in charge?” a well-dressed man protested. He was the one that struggled with a ridiculous number of suitcases getting off the bus.

  “You aren’t the only residents. I already have a patrol, a construction crew, and their families are already in residence along with the animal tenders, food growers, and health care providers.”

  So Brandon might not be my only option for a potential boyfriend. It didn’t send my hopes soaring though.

  “We aren’t the only residents? How are we all going to live here for a long time with so many people in one place?” Rich Guy’s wife chimed in. She must have been worried she wouldn’t get her fair share in the future.

  “There is plenty of room. You’ll see. Let’s move on.”

  In the stairway, Brandon briefly opened the doors to show us the halls of the floors with no residents. Probably to reassure Rich Guy and his pampered wife. On one of the floors near the bottom, we toured a large cafeteria. Also on that floor was a large growing facility. All lit up with LED lights and stacks of growing trays with little buds of vegetables lined up in some weird gel.

  “I hope you all like your greens. We will be having lots in the coming months,” Brandon said with great pride once we finished the tour of the long rows of growing racks. The tour reminded me of field trips back when I was in elementary school except the kids on this one were far from entertained. The prospect of lots of greens didn’t go over well judging by the groans, scrunched noses, and faces they made.

  The lights in the room flickered from a rumbling high above. The little ones started to squeal when the room went dark for longer than a second. Dim emergency lights turned on with only enough light to find the door.

  I wanted to cling to the nearest adult myself as the rumbling grew louder and lightly shook the dangling light fixtures. I looked for Jim, but he was too far away.

  “Everyone, please stay quiet while the storm passes over.” Brandon’s tablet eerily illuminated his face. “We are safe here.”

  I wasn’t reassured. The storms had everything to do with why we were evacuated to the bunkers in the first place.

  “My dogs.” I headed for the door. Brandon grabbed my arm to stop me.

  “They’ll be fine.”

  “But they’ll bark.” Tears welled up in my eyes. “Will something bad happen if they bark?”

  “The patrol can access your room if there’s a problem.”

  “They’ll bark even more at strangers,” I whispered as I tried to hide my trembling hands.

  “They will let me know if there’s a problem.” He met my gaze and held it until I relented. His grip on my arm released to a gentle hold that was somewhat reassuring. When he was convinced I wasn’t going to run off, he let me go. I swallowed the lump in my throat and waited uncomfortably with everyone until the storm passed.

  Parents whispered to their children to shush them. Everyone stayed silent until the rumbling passed.

  My nerves were on edge, all I wanted was my dogs after we began our tour again, but I said nothing. I didn’t want to miss out on important information, like when to show up at the cafeteria so I wouldn’t have to make everything I wanted to eat all the time.

  On the bottom floor was where the animals were kept and I was ready to quit the tour before we finished descending the stairs. It was like driving past a dairy when the smell fills the car, but it was an entire floor of stink. However, the calves were cute. The baby chicks I held in the palm of my hand stole my heart even though my eyes watered from the enclosed stench and maybe it was also because I knew some day they would be our dinner. I liked my chicken much better when it looked like it never had any feathers.

  I glanced up and caught Brandon’s eye before he looked away. He had been watching me. The only good feeling I had all day fluttered in my chest for a moment.

  3

  Finding Purpose

  After a few weeks, the dogs and I settled into a rather boring routine. There wasn’t much to it. I roamed the halls on all the floors with nothing better to do but plot how to “accidentally” run into Brandon and trying to come up with something smart to say once I captured his attention. Maybe I would have to rebel a little bit so I wouldn’t blend into the stark white walls quite so well.

  I explored the floors with no residents, touring the unfinished apartments, hoping someday I would have one of the larger, family-sized ones. They totally saw us living here for years to come, expanding the population. Fantasizing about a future with Brandon was all I had. Honestly, I wasn’t interested in anyone else because Brandon was in charge of everything. Might as well aim high when all other prospects for me were close to nil. If only I could find out how old he was.

  I smiled at my boys, Yodel and Dobbers, as they scampered and wrestled around my feet. We headed up to the lobby to see if Jim would allow them outside for a romp. Jim Rupp reminded me of my dad so I enjoyed visiting with him. He also was the only person besides Brandon that spoke to me the first day.

  Jim was the self-designated lobby security guard. He was one of those people that needed purpose or he would go stir crazy. I kept wondering where he found the silly, old, oversized, policeman hat, but if it made him feel important as he guarded the doors to the outside, I wasn’t going to give him any grief about it. We all needed a little something to help us feel useful with our new lives, restricted in the bunker – oh wait, apartment complex – far too often. For me, since I was alone, it was tending to my dogs every whim. Brandon still wouldn’t give me the time of day, so hence, I remained jobless.

  Even though Jim was a good twenty years older than me, being alone and far from our families was our common bond. Jim had been on a business trip. Of course, I was living it up in college, or more like suffering through mind-numbing lectures and endless homework. It all seemed totally pointless to me now. It still frustrated me that there had been no way for us to return home the day all cross-country travel stopped with no warning.

  “What are you reading today?” I asked, looking over his shoulder. We both liked retro books and old movies. There was plenty of that around since most technology was still banned outside the safe room. Everyone was always in there hogging everything.

  “Hmm?” He looked up at me and smiled. “Hi, Rachel. Oh, something from a long time ago. I find it funny that in this book the phones were attached to walls with long cords and the only thing they could do with them was talk.”

  “Well, we don’t even have that anymore. What is that thing?” I pointed to the rusty metal contraption on a wooden stand sitting on the desk.

  “Brandon likes his museum artifacts. This one is even older than the phone. It’s a telegraph. He wants me to learn how to use it so we can hopefully communicate with the others. I don’t see the point. There’s no way to use it if we can’t string wire lines to the other bunkers. We can’t even be outside for a half hour now before the clouds roll in.”

  “We need something to look forward to. Especially since every other form of communication has been banned. He’s found every computer or phone related device that anyone thought they could hide from him. Oh my gosh! The Harpers are the worst. They are still complaining how Brandon went through that woman’s lingerie to find their phones.”

  He sighed. “I know. We’ve only been here a few months and I’m already going nuts from those two. Well, there’s more getting to me than just them.”

  “I’ll do my best to keep you sane.” I squeezed his forearm. I reminded Jim of his teenage daughter and I accidentally called him dad once. We didn’t talk about it anymore, but all we wanted to know was if our families survived. “Can I let the dogs out for a run? I’m sure it won’t be much longer before we can’t go out at all.”

  “Let’s have a look.” Jim slid his rolling desk chair back and set his yellowed book with the tattered cover down on the desk. He headed for the back door made of heavy metal, fitted with oversized sliding bolts that disappeared into the wall. A
piece of metal covered a small window in the door. He slid it to the side and peered out.

  “The sun is shining. Let me double check.” Jim pulled back the bolts. The sound echoed in the lobby. The industrial sized hinges squeaked as he heaved the massive door open. He stepped into the passageway to climb the stairs that led to the next steel door with a small, uncovered heavy glass window inset in the steel to view the weather. Jim waved for me to follow as he unlatched the locks. “Don’t let them out long, though. I can’t see what’s rolling in over the bunker.”

  “The pups always come in before we even see it.”

  The dogs burst out the door, running in circles around the small grassy area to play a game of chase.

  “Brandon has been letting me in his office to occupy my time. Us single men need to stick together, you know. I found something in his archives. I keep thinking how lucky we are that we’re so far inland when all this happened and that we were in a small city. I knew there was a worldwide crisis, but I didn’t know how bad it was. I was so busy working, I had no clue.” Jim shook his head.

  “I never watched the news. I was always doing homework when I wasn’t in class. I was sitting through the most boring lecture when everyone’s phones went off at once. It was freakishly scary when the professor didn’t lose it and turned white as a sheet. He trembled when he gathered his notes, dropping them all over the floor while he waved us all out of the classroom. The whole school gathered in the field outside of the student union building. That’s when they told all the local kids to go home and the rest of us to call our families because if we weren’t within driving distance of the school, we wouldn’t be going home. I think I went into a daze while I frantically tried to call home. The lines were busy for hours. I finally did get through late that night, but my phone wasn’t working the next day. I didn’t expect that to be my last phone call home. The only thing I heard after that was the announcement to prepare for evacuations. Then I had twenty-four hours to prepare to come here.” It was weird that those days felt like they were part of a bad dream. I was still scared but not like I was a few weeks ago.

  “It must have happened so fast that I missed the news or maybe it was kept from us. The past few years there have been planes that occasionally disappeared or crashed with no survivors over the oceans. Recently, large numbers of them went missing all at once. I read in the news archives how they ended all airline flights, boats, and trains when all people and animals were found dead on the islands too, even Australia. The autopsies showed they all died over the course of a day. It wasn’t even an illness or anything, totally sudden. Then the coasts of Asia, South America, and Africa were hit. Our coasts had to be next. Someone here knew it was coming. How else would they have all these bunkers ready for occupation in time? Still haven’t figured out why they wouldn’t let us go home though. If they knew to prepare bunkers, why didn’t they make sure everyone was with their family before they gave the evacuation orders?” Jim rubbed his face the way he always did when he brought up his family.

  “I thought maybe there was some sort of invasion. The news said we were under attack and the worst was yet to come. Maybe alien? Isn’t Brandon always watching the sky? Is something hiding in the clouds when they roll in?”

  “I think they thought that at first. It isn’t aliens. There’s no sign of UFOs. Only storms that come out of nowhere. Hurricanes, tornadoes, typhoons, and drought are all a part of history. You don’t even know what all those things are, do you? That’s because global climate change has been regulated by meteorologists for years now. Hasn’t it been ingrained in you that freak weather happenings were all in the past? We’ve lived in a weather utopia for years now with plentiful abundance of perfectly scheduled weather, no fears of famine or destruction– until now.”

  “What do you mean until now?” I patted Yodel as he took a break from chase to say hello to me by stretching up on my leg. Dread was building in my chest and tightening around my heart. I didn’t realize that the crisis was as big as it was.

  “Every one that died, died from asphyxiation. That is not just some old-fashioned stormy weather bringing planes down, out of the sky. It’s exterminating entire populations of people and animals. I doubt the weather is being run by meteorologists or the government anymore.”

  “That’s just crazy talk.” I couldn’t look at Jim. Mainly because what he said sounded crazy, but I had the feeling deep down in my gut that he was speaking the truth.

  “You know it’s not. The storms unexpectedly roll in, the alarms go off, and we are locked in tight. We might still be in the dark as to why we were forced to evacuate here, but no one has fought it. Most of us heard on evacuation day that the numbers of the dead were astronomical. In Brandon’s archives, many of the people that tried to evacuate on the California coast didn’t make it to the bunkers. Too many people trying to leave at once were gridlocked in. I think there was something about computer glitches in the cars that added to it. You don’t want to read about that. It was awful. That’s why we had to leave on foot to get to the buses. Oh, and don’t worry too much about your family. I double checked to be sure, but the East Coast fared much better.” Jim patted my arm.

  I tried to smile. His family lived on the East Coast too. “I hate the thought of not being able to come outside to see the sun.”

  “I do too. But seeing your smiling face will work as my sunshine every day.”

  “That is so nice of you to say.” I don’t know why, but his corny words brought tears to my eyes. He was so much like my dad, it made my heart ache. If I didn’t get to see my dad again, Jim could ease that pain some. I wiped under my eyes discreetly as I bent down to grab a stick to throw for the dogs. They didn’t play fetch. It was pointless to try, but I got my mind off feeling sad. “Have you seen Brandon today?” I changed the subject, closing my eyes to enjoy the sun’s rays on my face and tried to appear only slightly interested in details about the elusive Brandon. I couldn’t deny that the young genius guy in charge was hot. He was also playing hard to get. Hard to see in the flesh. Hard to even find in such a confined space. I was starting to wonder if he was still around.

  “Only when he came to give me the daily rundown on new restrictions. He’s adding more every day. Pretty soon there will be no point for me to sit up here behind the desk. I suspect he might ban you from coming up too.”

  “I hope I can let the dogs out a few more times.”

  “The way the storms are rolling in now, I’m sure it’s just a matter of days.”

  “Does Brandon know what all we’re hiding from? Is it just black thunderstorm clouds?”

  “He hasn’t given me any clues. I’m sure he knows, though. There are a lot of restricted files in the archives that I can’t get into.” Jim gave my shoulder a push when he remembered something. “I didn’t believe Brandon when he said that he designed this bunker. He looks so young I had to ask him how old he is. He’s twenty-six. In the end, they used his plans on a quarter of them. They used several different bunker designs because they didn’t want to depend on one style in case they all failed. Isn’t that disheartening? The construction crew has been busy with all his modifications before we got here. Oh, here they come.”

  The wind picked up as the dogs ran through the doorway with their tails tucked between their legs. They weren’t the only animals to come in the door. A few birds and a squirrel followed. Jim and I put our weight into shutting the heavy metal door. Two more birds flew in and a rabbit squeezed through before the door slammed shut. We shoved the heavy bolts into the wall just as the thick, dark clouds blotted out the sun.

  “That’s more than last time,” Jim said, as he shooed the birds and the rabbit into the lobby.

  Loud music blasted overhead like it usually did when a storm rolled in. It helped distract from all the rumbling. The dogs freaked out, barking at the squirrel and the rabbit. I grabbed Yodel. Jim scooped up Dobbers. We held their mouths shut, whispering for them to stop barking. I had to bite my lip
so I wouldn’t scream as the squirrel climbed up my leg to my sweatshirt before it burrowed in my hood.

  The lobby lights rattled. The birds hunched down in the fake ficus trees, nervously looking about.

  “The little guy is scared all curled up in your hood,” Jim whispered in my ear, handing me Dobbers. He collected the rabbit that hid in the corner then placed it in an animal carrier. “You should take the boys to your apartment. I can catch these guys. I’m well practiced now.”

  “Do you think Wanda and Ben mind the extra animals?”

  “They haven’t minded yet. I think they like to hear the bird songs. You should go down and hang out in Live Food Management sometime.”

  “Okay, they seriously need to rename it. Why not just call it The Farm?”

  “I don’t know. You should talk to Brandon, I bet he named it.”

  “I can never find him and I can’t stand the smell down there anyway. Maybe that’s where Brandon’s been hiding.”

  “You want to take the squirrel down there?”

  “I’ll just take him to the vet. I might ask if I can keep him.” If my arms weren’t full of dogs, I would have plugged my ears as I descended the stairs. The blasted music echoed even worse off the cement walls in the stairwell.

  4

  To Flirt or Not to Flirt

  I wasn’t allowed outside with the dogs anymore. I went to the vet every day and begged her to let me keep the squirrel while he was quarantined. The vet gave in to my pleas telling me Rocky was easy to handle and he seemed to have bonded with me quickly. The Agriculture Floor gave me a dwarf lemon tree for Rocky the day I brought him home. I hung a plastic bowl on a branch with zip ties and he promptly made a nest out of cotton balls.