High Pressure System: First Season Underground Read online

Brandon ran lock down drills far more often than was necessary over the next few weeks, driving everyone nuts. Mainly because of his choice in music. The drills started with The William Tell Overture blasting over the PA. We stopped whatever we were doing, returned to our apartments right away, and pressed our thumbs into the simple recognition pad on the wall to trigger the door to lock us in.

  When I was exploring one of the vacant floors one day, I tried staying in one of the empty apartments during lock-down. I pressed my thumb in the recognition pad as if I was in my own home. It was quite nice too because the music wasn’t blasting as loud as it did in mine.

  I sat on the floor waiting for the all clear when the door swooshed open. The dogs barked protectively at the intruder. When I got a hold of them both, I wanted to die when I looked up.

  Brandon stood in the doorway with clenched fists, glaring at me with fire in his eyes and fury reddening his face as if I had committed the ultimate sin, defied the laws of God, and anything else he thought was holy. I broke one of the Brandon Commandments.

  “If you pull something like this again, anyone that wants to see you will have to come to your new room in the security hall.”

  I stood up so he wasn’t looking down at me. I wasn’t going to let him intimidate me like that. “Geez, Brandon. Lighten up a little. It wasn’t like I tried to defy you by roaming the halls. I still locked myself in a safe place. It would have taken me much longer to go all the way back up to my apartment. I thought this would have been better to help your timing stats that you are so obsessed over.” I didn’t waver when he seemed to fire up at me even more.

  He closed the door behind him and it hushed the music in the hall. My chest tightened when I realized I was alone with him and the situation was less than ideal. I had no idea what Brandon was like as a real person when he wasn’t bossing a group of people around. I was still in close proximity to him and his fury. I flinched when Brandon stepped even closer and I held my breath so I wouldn’t breathe in his face. Did I have onions for lunch? I couldn’t remember.

  His face unexpectedly softened.

  “I need you to follow my rules because if something happened to you or anyone else, I would never forgive myself. Pulling something like this could compromise everyone’s safety.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets and looked at the ground. “I’m not the kind of person that likes to be in a position of power, but I have to be. You could make this so much easier if you follow the rules. I don’t even know if these drills will keep us safe. Please don’t be the one responsible for encouraging the others to rebel. There is so much contention already. It won’t take much for it to unravel.”

  I bit my upper lip and stared at my feet. I felt like a fool. Brandon was so sincere that all I could do was nod and whisper, “I’m sorry. Should I go to my apartment now?”

  “Sure. I’ll walk you back since your apartment is on my way to the control room.”

  The walk back was silent and completely awkward. I spoke to the dogs and Rocky. Even then I felt like a dork so I only said something if I had to.

  Brandon briefly touched my arm to get my attention as I pressed my thumb against the recognition pad. I looked up at him hoping he couldn’t tell his touch just electro-shocked my heart as my door unlatched and opened.

  “If there is a next time, I will hunt you down again, and I won’t be as nice as I was this time. You understand?” The open, sincere Brandon was no more.

  I nodded even though I wanted to rage at him for being such a jerk right then. And I had all those warm fuzzy thoughts about him. At least I knew he had it in him to be nice. Sadly, he wasn’t warming up to me at all though. I didn’t want to get his attention by aggravating him even more so I resigned myself to follow the rules.

  When the drills happened after my little run-in with Brandon, I begrudgingly followed the dogs and Rocky as they raced to our apartment when they heard the music. I loved to watch them sabotage each other as they raced for the door, and it broke up the tediousness of each drill.

  When we weren’t in lock-down, I hovered where Brandon frequented in the cafeteria. He was finally making appearances outside of his control room as the weeks wore on. Mostly he had his eyes glued to his checklists and was all business all the time. I really wanted to make amends so I tried to be friendly with him when he was in the nicer dining hall.

  I approached the table slowly. I always felt out of sorts and fidgety whenever I left the dogs behind in my apartment. They were always my buffer. This time it was only me as I slid onto the chair across from him. He never looked up. I picked at my nail as the words all jumbled up in my mouth. Brandon might have looked like he was close to my age, but he was sure skilled at intimidating me with his ‘in charge of the world’ attitude. Usually, I would have dismissed him long ago. Working on getting him to like me even a little bit was the only goal I had in life at the moment.

  “Is there anything I can help you with?” I squeezed my eyes shut. He probably would have asked me some time ago if there was. But ‘How’s it goin?’ had an obvious answer. Being cooped up with everyone for so long and hearing all the anti-Brandon rants, I already had a clue.

  “Nope,” he said dismissively.

  The silence was so painfully awkward that I couldn’t come up with anything else to say.

  “Umm, do you want company?” I knew what he was going to say the instant I stopped talking. Maybe he would surprise me with something else.

  “Nope,” he said.

  My face burned as I turned in my chair to leave. He grabbed my hand.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound like that. I’m working on something so now is not a good time.” For the first time since the first day I arrived, Brandon actually met my gaze when he wasn’t mad at me. I was so out of sorts that it did nothing but humiliate me more. I could only nod and wait for him to release my hand so I could go. I probably needed to reevaluate my life goals.

  “Try me again next time.” He gave me a sorry attempt at a smile.

  However, there was no next time. Tension was growing. Brandon avoided me and everyone else that wanted to know what was going on above ground. He tightened restrictions even more. What was worse was he refused to answer questions as to whether we would ever get to go home again.

  I finally had enough of listening to everyone gripe about all the things I wanted to know too. I was going to do something about it.

  Brandon headed down the hall to the control room late one night when I stepped in front of him. He nervously ran a hand through his dark brown hair that had grown into wavy, big tousled curls all over his head in the weeks we had been there. When his bright blue eyes met mine, they made me forget why I was so upset for a second. He actually looked sad. If only he wasn’t so infuriatingly disinterested in me. That thought brought the fury back.

  “Why won’t you explain to us why we’re stuck here, why we can’t go outside, and how long this will last?” I stepped in his way again when he tried to step around me.

  Brandon looked me in the eye before he relented in his abrupt way. “Well here’s the run down. Something will kill you when you step outside, and no one knows how long it will last.”

  “I already know that much. What’s out there?” Not backing down, I watched his eyes intently.

  “We don’t know exactly.” He glanced away.

  I pressed my finger in his chest. “You know more than you want to tell. Why the music all the time? Why all the lockdown drills?”

  Brandon looked past me as the Andersons and their three kids headed up the hall.

  “Everyone is getting their nights and days mixed up.” He gave the Andersons a brief wave and token smile before he nodded at me to follow him to his control room. After he closed the door, he offered me a chair.

  “I know what it is. But I’m not allowed to say.” All color drained from his face and he trembled as he lifted his tablet from the table to study the screen.

  “What’s wrong?” I stood up to see.
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  Brandon clutched the tablet against his chest, shaking his head and his shoulders slumped. He let out a big sigh. “Here’s what I’m dealing with, maybe you can help get everyone off my back. The construction workers finished the tunnel to thirty-eight ninety-eight. They’ve been working around the clock. One of them must have dropped this off while I was out. I wanted to connect bunkers so we weren’t so isolated. It looks like the one closest to us has no survivors.” Brandon showed me the picture on the tablet. The people died clustered together with terror all over their white frozen faces, their chests oddly compressed, and their mouths wide open. “They are filling the tunnel as we speak. I know that the feeling of being cut off from the world is hard on everyone’s morale if we are to stay here long term. And it looks as if we will be here for a long time. They will try thirty-eight ninety-nine next. That’s all I can tell you for now.” Brandon faced the screens on the wall and turned off the monitor that showed a storm rolling in. Flipping on the music, he sunk down in a chair. He didn’t say another word or even acknowledge that I was still there.

  I quietly left the control room for lockdown.

  The picture of all the dead people kept popping up in my mind for the longest time and the odd, swirling clouds from the storm gave me constant nightmares.

  5

  Locked Down Forever

  I hadn’t visited Jim for a while. Dobbers, Yodel, and Rocky scampered about in their usual fashion as we entered the lobby. I was caught off guard when Jim threw his hat on the ground and stormed off.

  On Jim’s desk next to the telegraph was a piece of scratch paper with‘3899 deceased’ scrawled on it. My heart sank. I couldn’t tell where the wire from the telegraph led once it went through the floor. More than likely Brandon had given Jim the bad news.

  Something scratched at the front door. The dogs sniffed all around the bottom edge. The scratching intensified. Jim was gone and whatever it was desperately wanted in. I stared at the door and wrung my hands, unsure of what to do. One of Jim’s great causes was saving all the animals he could. He would have let it in. So I slid the first latch over, hesitating before I pulled the other one. The frantic scratching escalated as the animal yowled in panic. I pulled the latch and opened the door. Chaos ensued as Fred the cat darted in, and the dogs went out.

  In a panic, I headed up the stairs after the dogs to the second door. The roof overhead started to shake. Dobbers ran back inside, but Yodel cowered on the ground, frozen in fear near the door. When I picked him up, I saw the ominous clouds through the small window. A cold sensation washed over me and pooled into a tight knot that twisted in my gut.

  Dark gray clouds swirled in the sky. Wind whipped the grass flat to the ground while tree limbs swayed from side to side. Tornado-like cloud tentacles reached for the ground. They searched around the trees. More cloud tentacles touched down near the concrete entry to the bunker in front of ours. It was as if the clouds had arms and they were searching everywhere.

  My heart raced before I even ran down the stairs for the lobby. Wind sucked me back, pulling me closer to the closed door. Fighting the pull, I struggled to reach each stair, gripping the rail with one hand. I hugged Yodel tight against my chest. The pull was so strong. He whimpered some. I did too as air sucked out of my lungs. I was so close.

  The William Tell Overture blasted from the PA system in the lobby. My eyes watered when I realized not only could I possibly die, opening the door would probably allow whatever it was to kill everyone in the bunker because of my carelessness. Brandon had warned me. I almost reached the last step. My chest was compressing and I couldn’t inhale. Yodel wilted in my arm.

  A hand grabbed hold of my wrist. I was flung into the lobby. Jim and Brandon slammed the door shut and shoved the latches closed. The music reverberated in my ears as I gasped for air.

  Brandon shoved my back into the wall. “What were you thinking?” he screamed in my face.

  The roof shook. All the light fixtures rattled and flickered.

  Before I could catch my breath to answer, he pulled me through the lobby to the stairs. Jim held Dobbers and the cat, running ahead of us. Rocky leaped onto my leg, climbed up my side until he reached my hood and burrowed deep into it. I stumbled after Brandon and struggled to breathe as he yanked me through the door into the stairway. He pressed several buttons on a keypad next to the door. The keypad popped open. Brandon slammed his fist on the big red button. A heavy metal slab came out of the wall and latched over the door opening. He pulled me down the stairs to the second floor. He did the same there. Brandon brought me to the third floor, heading for his control room. I almost ran into him when he stopped abruptly.

  “Give Jim that dog.” Brandon folded his arms and waited.

  I suddenly felt five-years-old again. My ears burned and I couldn’t even look at Brandon as I set Yodel on the floor. I slowly removed Rocky from my hood, buying myself some time to compose myself as I released him on the floor.

  Jim whistled and they followed as he walked away reluctantly, giving me a sympathetic look. Well, frick. He wasn’t going to help bail me out.

  Brandon grabbed my arm and stormed into his control room. He caught the door before it slammed and closed it gently

  “Can we turn off the music?” My head throbbed as The William Tell Overture blasted for the tenth time.

  “No, not yet.” Brandon paced the room and rubbed his chin while he studied all the monitors. “The music confuses it. In Houston, the only survivors were in a nightclub under a hotel. Can you imagine leaving the nightclub only to discover most of the city died while you danced the night away?” He leaned in to look closer at one of the screens.

  “I’m so sorry.” I collapsed into the chair. Tears spilled from my eyes. My hands trembled as I rubbed my chest where it ached. “You warned me. It wasn’t my intention to put us all in danger like that.”

  “It was just a matter of time. Honestly, I didn’t think it would be you. I wanted to put the lobby in permanent lockdown anyway, but I was afraid of mutiny if I went through with it. Your mistake was all the validation I needed to not wait another minute. At least this will be your fault and not me being the bad guy again. I wasn’t supposed to divulge information as to what’s been going on. I don’t see the point anymore. There’s no one to report to. Do you understand why we’re here now?” He turned off all the screens and pulled up a chair to face me.

  “Yes, but what is it?” I dried my cheeks with the cuff of my sweatshirt.

  “You have no idea how lucky you are to be alive. I know you saw it. I can see you totally felt it.” He leaned closer, gripping the arm of my chair

  “The storms are searching for us. Why are the clouds killing everything?”

  “Because technology is using the weather to war with us.”

  “That’s not possible.”

  “And everyone thought it wasn’t possible that an intelligent computer could teach itself how to program the weather on its own with the intention to destroy us. There have been so many movies about that sort of thing. Stephen Hawking even warned us long before he died about the possibility that artificial intelligence could exterminate us. Weather control had its purpose while the world was in crisis from climate change. People believed they mastered everything once they allowed high-tech to run it all. Some of these computers have been given the intelligence to learn and grow beyond our own comprehension. Once man found a way to manipulate Mother Nature, that technology was given to artificial intelligence to be master of it all.” Brandon ran his hands through his hair in frustration. “Something that has learned to think for itself should not have that much power. We didn’t have time to fight it if we wanted to survive. It adapted too quickly when we tried to shut it down and it killed anyone who tried.” Brandon stood to turn the volume down in the control room. Leaning against the wall, he sighed and took his time before he spoke again. “Everything we use in here is old school. Our bunker is off the grid completely. I’ve done my research. I’m barely
able to glean bits and pieces before it comes back searching for us. It adapts so quickly. I’m still researching how to hide from it, and that’s why we are all still alive. We literally created a monster when we gave technology the power to control Mother Nature.”

  “You say we. You mean you had a part in it?”

  “Yes. Being the naïve boy genius, I didn’t have a clue at first when I accepted the job offer during my internship. Once I learned what was going on and how the computers were outsmarting the people running them, I wanted to stop it. I barely had the programming skills needed to regain control during the first crisis. I knew what was coming though, long before the islands were lost. I told them all that a disaster of epic proportions was coming. Who wants to hear that when they are reveling in worldwide fame and success? Everyone involved in the program refused to see it.”

  Brandon sat in his chair again, completely deflated. He turned on a monitor, studied it for a few minutes before he turned the blaring music off. “I lobbied hard. Nothing came of it. I’m young so they ignored me saying I was a doomsday alarmist. With all the noise I made with the government elitists, the opposition found me. The ones against weather engineering quietly gave me the go ahead and the funding to oversee the organization that built all the bunkers. Once everyone figured out I had been right all along, I took over the entire project. Nothing has ever been built on a scale like that so quickly. Every bunker was designed to house a small population that can repopulate our nation if it is the only one to survive this apocalypse. Now I see that my rigid rules and old school technology have already helped us survive this long. So far my track record on being right has been spot on. You aren’t the only one going nuts. I haven’t slept in months when I was ordering construction crews across the nation to build at an unprecedented rate. Suddenly I have more time than I know what to do with and I still can’t sleep.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me sooner? I mean, if you told me this from the start, I would have understood. I’ve just wanted to help you out and be a friend since you don’t seem to have many. Both of us are here alone. Without family, it is kind of lonely.” When my watery eyes met his, Brandon’s face relaxed a little as he rested a hand on my shoulder.