William Johnstone - The Doomsday Bunker

“Nobody’s getting locked up,” he began again. “These guys blew off some steam, and that’s the end of it— if they’ll go on about their business.”

Greer bunched his fists and stuck his jaw out defiantly. “What if we’re tired of shutting up and rolling over?” he said. “What if we’ve decided it’s time to start fighting for our rights?”

He was just showing off for his girlfriend, Larkin thought. But before he could respond to Greer, the loudspeakers crackled and Graham Moultrie’s voice filled the bunker. His tone betrayed his excitement as he said, “Attention, please. I need your attention, everyone. We’ve just received a signal—from outside!”

That news made everyone in the bunker fall silent—but only for a few seconds.

Then voices erupted in shouts of surprise, joy, and maybe even a little apprehension. During the past eight months, people had settled into a life here, despite its drawbacks.

Who knew what might be going on in the outside world?

For all this time, everything had been silent up there. The Internet, wireless networks, shortwave radio… all had been quiet. The project’s instruments showed that radiation levels had dropped steadily and exponentially since the day of the war, but the initial readings had been almost off the charts, indicating that the warhead that had fallen on Arlington had been a high-yield and extremely dirty one. The contamination was still bad enough to be dangerous to human life. Moultrie wasn’t going to risk the whole project and everyone in it by unbuttoning too soon.

A significant number of the residents were convinced that the people down here were the last human beings on Earth. They had formed their own group and called themselves the Sole Survivors. Their philosophy was a blend of apocalyptic hysteria and religion. Larkin thought their beliefs were a little far-fetched—the chances of the residents of the Hercules Project being the only ones left seemed unlikely to him—but as far as he was concerned, whatever got them through the days and nights was their business.

If there were people still alive on the surface, that would shoot holes in the Sole Survivors’ dogma, but they would just have to get over that and move forward. Larkin, like everybody else in the bunker, was excited and eager to hear what Moultrie had to say.

“We’ve picked up a shortwave radio transmission,” the project’s leader continued, causing a hushed, attentive silence to fall again. “It was very brief and fragmentary, probably caused by signal skip in the upper atmosphere. Someone was sending old-fashioned Morse code. We weren’t able to transcribe complete sentences, just parts of individual words here and there, so we don’t ’t know who they are or where they’re located. They were sending in a foreign language, possibly Portuguese, so right now we’re speculating that the message may have originated in Brazil. That seems to be the most likely possibility. But even though we don’t actually know much at this time, we can be sure of this: we are not alone. There were others who lived through that terrible day, and it’s only a matter of time until the human race is reunited again. Until then, God bless each and every one of us in the Hercules Project.”

The loudspeakers clicked off, another second went by, and then another storm of cheers and whistles burst out. People hugged and pounded each other on the back. Some kissed, some even danced around. They were excited and justifiably so. This terrible ordeal they were enduring probably still had a long way to go, but now, for the first time, it was possible to glimpse some hope for the future again.

The fight Larkin had broken up seemed to be forgotten, at least for now, but he didn’t fully trust Charlotte Ruskin and her friends. Greer had grabbed Charlotte and was hugging her so tightly her feet had come off the floor. She wasn’t a petite woman, so that probably wasn’t easy. It showed how excited Greer was, though.

Larkin turned, caught the eye of Pomeroy and Ortega, and motioned with a thumb for them to take off. Putting some distance between them and their former opponents would go a long way toward restoring the peace. Pomeroy nodded and faded off into the celebrating crowd, but Ortega hesitated before moving closer to Larkin.

“Listen, man, you don’t know what those two were saying,” Ortega said, keeping his voice quiet enough that only Larkin could hear him in the hubbub. “They were talking about how it’s time to take control of the project away from Moultrie.”

“There are always malcontents, wherever you go,” Larkin said. “Those two were just letting out some hot air.”

Ortega shook his head. “No, they were saying Moultrie’s a dictator and he’s got to be overthrown.” He leaned closer. “They want to take over and open up the bunker. They say it’s time to go back up.”

A chill went through Larkin at that. Moultrie kept all the members of the security force updated on surface conditions. Larkin knew it wasn’t safe there yet. He understood why people wanted to get back up top and see the sun again, take stock of what was left and what might be possible going forward, but rushing things could spell doom for all of them.

Ortega went on, “Mike and I told ’em they were crazy, and they jumped us. That’s what started the whole thing.”

Larkin nodded and said, “Thanks for filling me in, Zeke.”

“Of course, I guess it’s not completely their fault. That Ruskin woman keeps stirrin’ ’em up.”

“I know,” Larkin said. “Maybe this news today will change things.”

“I sure hope so,” Ortega said, then he drifted off into the crowd, too.

Larkin looked around. More than likely, the excitement that gripped the bunker would keep things relatively peaceful here for a while. Anyway, he wasn’t the only security man on duty. He started toward the closest set of stairs leading up to the corridors.

In the wake of Moultrie’s announcement, he wanted to see his wife.

Susan had been treating a patient with a cold that was threatening to turn into a sinus infection when Moultrie’s announcement came over the public-address system. Colds—good old upper-respiratory viruses—weren’t as common down here as they had been in the world before the war, but they hadn’t been wiped out because a number of people had been sick when they entered the Hercules Project. In a closed environment like this, it was inevitable that the virus would be passed around. A person couldn’t catch the same virus twice, but with more than 200 of the little bastards that caused the common cold, Susan didn’t believe the ailment would ever be wiped out completely. Maybe if generation after generation of residents lived down here for the next couple of hundred years…

Of course, if it came down to that, they’d probably have lots worse things to think about than the sniffles. Human beings weren’t wired to spend their whole lives underground, like worms in the earth.

In the meantime, there wasn’t much that could be done about colds. People just had to suffer through them, as they had done before the war. But occasionally the damage done by the virus turned into a bacterial infection, and Susan thought that was the case in the elderly man she was examining today. His nasal secretions were thick and green, and he was running a fever. He was going to need a round of antibiotics. Susan didn’t want the infection settling into his lungs and turning into pneumonia.

She’d been about to tell him that when Moultrie’s voice came over the speaker, delivering the news of the shortwave transmission that probably had originated in Brazil. That had excited the patient so much he’d wanted to forget about the exam and rush back to his apartment to see his wife.