Jacqueline Druga - Protocol One

Joie delightfully added. “We’re cooking rations.”

Tony tilted his head toward her. “Nelly has taken the job of care taker and teacher.”

“I enjoy it,” Nelly said. “Keeps my mind occupied.”

“That’s nice,” I said passively. “Well…” In the middle of my sentence, Tony nudged me and mumbled, ‘ask her something’. I did. I asked.”Nelly, what did you do in life? I mean for a living, a job.”

“I was a beautician. I worked at a shop and then opened a shop in my home when my daughter was born. But I was a beautician.”

“See?” Tony nodded. “That’s good to know. A useful skill. If it was up to me, I’d use clippers on everyone.”

I thanked Nelly and Tony and I headed out. There was a noticeable temperature increase when we went to the walkway to Hive One.

It cooled some the lower we walked. We decided to start at the bottom and work our way up.

The generator room was loud. Unlike the sleeping floor, that lower level wasn’t sectioned off. It was one big circular room containing the guts of the bunker.

To my surprise, Duke was down there. He was a mechanic all his life, loved to fix things and took on the job of maintenance. Watching the machinery and making sure everything kept running was his new occupation.

“Fourteen thousand gallon tank,” Duke said about the fuel.

“What happens when it runs out?” I asked.

“Hopefully, it won’t. We plan on switching to wind power once the sun returns fully and most of the dust has settled. All of the blades are in storage. The tower is in place, it just needs to rise. Right now we’re burning about forty gallons a day, so we’re good for a while.”

Duke seemed like a no nonsense, straight forward and strong guy. I probably could have guessed every aspect of his life. But seeing how Tony wanted me to ask one question, I did. I asked him what his favorite music was. When he said country, I was thrilled. Jackson loved country and I was certain he had several of his songs that he wrote on his tablet.

I made a mental note that once I was brave enough to fire up his tablet I would let Duke hear them.

Heading to the next floor, Tony told me that the only two people I wouldn’t see were the two guards, Abe and Ben. Somehow I didn’t think those were really their names since at first Tony referred to them as A and B.

Abe and Ben took the night watch, making sure things ran smoothly and there were no problems while we slept. Also, Spencer, our police officer, had come down with a bug similar to mine.

Floor four was agriculture and it was divided into three sections. Growth, research and animals.

We had chickens. Despite the fact that we weren’t near them when we entered the floor, I could hear them.

“Only ten.” Melissa said. “And I know it’s warm, but we have the ultra violet lights running in the interior farm. It looks good. Skyler is with them.”

I asked Melissa why we had an entire floor for agriculture.

She replied. “Because I need to make sure we find a way, either topside or below, to be self sufficient long before our supplies run out. We don’t want to rely on storage. We want to count on growth.”

“Tell me something about yourself,” I said. “That I would be surprised to know.”

“I sew.” Melissa answered without hesitation. “I make my own clothes.”

“You farm and sew?” I asked.

“Yeah, you can say I was preparing for the end of the world long before I knew it.”

We walked to the chicken area, which had fake grass, fake sun and a coop. Skyler was there and I spoke with him for a while. I learned that he spoke three other languages and loved being in the Army. He even offered to help with security in the bunker. Monitoring and so forth.

Tony said he would take him up on that. Skyler would work all the time. He wanted to stay busy and joked that was why he was being the dedicated ‘Mother Hen’.

It made me smile.

We headed to the top floor. I had seen the medical room and Craig was in there taking inventory of what they had. He told us he hoped there was a never a need for it, but worried in regards to the future because anything we had would be useless in a few years.

Craig was one of those people who thought ahead. He was gentle and cared.

Peters’ office was tiny, and he had the least time to make for us. He was comparing statistics from previous impacts, trying to make predictions on the current one.

When I asked him about his life, he stated. “I don’t have time right now. I am trying to be focused. But if you want, I would love to make time for you. I’ll tell you all that you need to know.”

We left Peter’s office, and of course Tony had a sarcastic comment. He stated, “You opened yourself up to the first post apocalypse world stalker. He’s not going to leave you alone.”

Peter had a brilliant mind and a part of me didn’t mind at all spending time with him and listening to him. If I had anything, it was time to learn.

The switch room was last.

“And here’s the man of the hour,” Tony said. “And decade. Because he will keep us running into the next phase.”

Tom sat in a swivel chair and turned to me. “Glad to see you up. How are you feeling?”

“Better, thanks,” I said. “What is all this?”

“All this… is the hub,” Tom replied. “It controls the generators and the meters on the tanks. I watch to make sure everything is running and that nothing is overheating.”

“Speaking of which,” Tony said. “What’s the surface temperature now?”

“Last reading was one ninety-Fahrenheit. It’s bad.”

“People can’t possibly survive that,” I said. “Can they?”

“Yeah, if you think about it. The earth is one big sauna. It’s dry heat like a sauna. They can’t live in it but can travel in brief intervals. It won’t last. Once temperatures take a nose dive, they’ll last a long time.”

“Right now,” Tony added. “We can only gauge by right here. Around us. Once the antenna is lifted, we’ll be able to try to reach out. But we can’t raise it yet. Not yet.”

“Not with the temperatures the way they are,” Tom said. “The antenna is a pretty big deal. It goes pretty high. If we channel enough power to it, we may be able to break through the cotton candy cloud. You know that swirly thing of dust that’s gonna happen. Once that falls, we’ll reach out for sure.”

“Reach out to who?” I asked.

Peter entered the switch room, answering as he did. “For starters, the government surely doesn’t expect us to believe that they don’t have at least one grand survivor shelter out there. I mean, look at this place. One of three. If a private citizen with the knowledge did this, imagine the federal government.” He looked at us. “I’m sorry, I was eavesdropping from my office and wanted to join the conversation.”

I held up my hand. “That’s fine. You are a brilliant and famous scientist.”

“Thank you for that.” Peter said. “And those are the survivors we’ll reach out to first because they’ll have the technology to respond. And the space station, we’ll try that. Maybe tap into the NASA satellites.”

“Satellites? Space station?”

“Oh, sure.” Peter replied. “Ten thousand satellites are above us. We should be able to reach something. I mean if a satellite phone can, so can we. Maybe we can bounce a signal and pick up someone who thought enough ahead to protect the radio from the EMP.”

“So you guys honestly believe there are others out there?” I questioned.

“Without a doubt,” Tony replied. “Now there are. For how long remains to be seen.”

Tom added. “Long term, it will make sense to network with other survivor stations. If they build communications, they are building some sort of community. That’s my opinion.”