William Johnstone - The Doomsday Bunker

“Not just yet, Mr. Bardwell,” Susan told him. “I’m as thrilled to hear about that as you are, but you don’t need to leave until I’ve written you a prescription for antibiotics. You’ll need to fill it today, too. Don’t wait until tomorrow to get started on these.”

“All right, Dr. Larkin,” the man said. “But this sure is great news, isn’t it?”

“It certainly is,” Susan agreed with a smile. She had long since given up trying to get people to stop referring to her as “Doctor.” Early on, she had been pressed into the role of nurse-practitioner, since a couple of the people who hadn’t made it to the bunker in time that fateful day had been MDs Moultrie was counting on to work in the project’s clinic. Like most nurses, Susan knew as much on a practical level as most doctors did, at least when it came to general ailments. She’d been able to make up some of the clinic’s personnel shortage. Right now, in fact, she was the only member of the medical staff on duty.

Jill helped out now and then, too, when she could find the time between her work in the pharmacy and her duties as a member of the security force. Susan still didn’t care for the idea of her daughter being in the middle of trouble when it broke out, but she had to admit that Jill was able to take care of herself.

Mr. Bardwell took the prescription Susan wrote for him and hurried out of the exam room. With the door open, Susan could hear cheers coming from elsewhere in the project. People were excited, obviously.

Jill appeared in the doorway a moment later with a big smile on her face. “You heard that, Mom? You heard?”

Susan said, “I heard. It’s wonderful news, isn’t it? We’re not… alone in the world after all.” She frowned slightly as she went on, “But I just sent a patient to the pharmacy for some antibiotics. Shouldn’t you be there?”

“Sandy Carter is working right now. She should have everything covered. I’ve got to go find Trev and the kids!” Jill threw her arms around her mother and gave her an exuberant hug. Susan didn’t often see her daughter this excited. Normally, Jill was on the cool and reserved side, as quiet and pragmatic as her father.

“The kids will be in school,” Susan called after her as Jill started out of the clinic. “You shouldn’t interrupt—”

She stopped, realizing that the same sort of excitement gripping the rest of the project was probably on display in the school, as well. The teachers and kids were all human. They would be as thrilled as anyone else to hear that there was other life in the world, that they weren’t the only ones left.

The clinic’s waiting room was empty. There had been three more patients there earlier. Susan looked at the receptionist, Becky Hammond, and asked, “What happened to everybody?”

“They all rushed out when they heard the news. I don’t think we’re likely to have any more business today, Susan.”

“Well, maybe not. But I’ll stay until the end of my shift anyway. If you want to go…”

Becky edged out from her little cubicle. “I’d really like to go find my husband…”

Susan laughed and waved a hand. “Go.”

“Don’t you want to see Patrick?”

“If I know my husband, he’ll be showing up here before too much… Speak of the devil.”

Larkin ambled through the entrance. He poked a thumb against his chest and said, “Me? I’m the devil?”

“Of course not. But I was expecting to see you, and here you are.”

“Great minds think alike.” Larkin took her in his arms and held her. Becky hurried out of the clinic, waving good-bye to Susan over Larkin’s shoulder as she left.

After a moment, Susan stepped back and said, “It’s wonderful news, isn’t it?”

“Sure.”

She looked at him, saw the slight frown furrowing his forehead, and said, “What’s wrong? You don’t sound very enthusiastic, and I can tell that you’re thinking about something.”

“A possibility occurred to me on the way over here. That was a shortwave message they picked up. Morse code, Moultrie said. My guess is that whoever sent it is looking for signs of human life just like we’ve been doing. We send out shortwave messages around the clock, too. It’s all automated.”

“So?”

Larkin sighed. “So what if the message we picked up is the same thing? An automated signal being sent out by some other survivors?”

“I don’t see why that would be a bad thing,” Susan said.

“Because unless we can answer them and get some response back from them, we don’t know that they’re really out there. We don’t have any way of knowing how long that signal has been going out. The system sending it could be programmed to keep doing so as long as it has power, even if whoever set it up in the first place isn’t… there anymore.”

“You mean dead,” Susan said, a bleak note entering her voice.

Larkin’s broad shoulders rose and fell. “That’s probably not the case, but it could be. Everybody’s getting excited about communicating with the outside world, but we aren’t, really. Not yet. It could be just… a ghost signal.”

“You don’t know that. It could be that Graham is talking to those people in Brazil or wherever they are, and he just hasn’t announced it yet.”

“Sure,” Larkin said, nodding. “That’s what I’m going to hope for. I’m just a little worried that if it doesn’t turn out that way, a lot of people are going to be really disappointed. And that’s a problem.”

“How so?”

“Because when people are disappointed,” Larkin said, “sometimes they get mad, too.”

May 23

Living underground like this, night and day didn’t mean much. It would have been easy to lose track of time completely. Knowing that, Moultrie insisted on an ironclad schedule. He had programmed the times of sunrise and sunset for the next year into the computers that controlled the lighting in the Hercules Project, and each day at the appropriate time the lights dimmed to almost nothing—many of them went off entirely—or brightened to simulate the dawning of a new day. Large monitors located in various places displayed the date and time. One thing he didn’t worry about was Daylight Savings Time, sticking with what it had been when the bunker was closed up.

The temperature went down at night as well, not proportionate to what it would have in an uncontrolled environment, but rather just enough to give a suggestion of what would have been natural. If there had been any way to replicate rain that wouldn’t cause too much trouble, he probably would have provided that as well, but some things just had to be done without.

Larkin hadn’t forgotten what it was like to feel the sun and the wind on his face. He hoped they would be outside again soon enough that he wouldn’t forget, and no one else would, either.

He and Susan were in their apartment in Silo A one evening, watching a movie streaming from the project’s library, when a knock sounded on the door. Larkin paused the movie and went to answer it.

Chuck Fisher was there, and Larkin was a little surprised to see that Jill and Threadgill were with the security director. Fisher’s expression was grim.

“What’s up?” Larkin asked.

“Charlotte Ruskin and her friends are having a rally downstairs this evening. They went around putting up signs about it. They’re going to demand a vote to replace Graham.”

“They can’t do that. This isn’t a political system. Graham wasn’t elected to start with. How can they have an election to replace him?”

“They seem to have the idea that if they have the numbers on their side, they can do whatever they want.”