Eden Plague - Latest Edition (45 page)

We drove our little convoy into an unlit tunnel, bored into the mountain at a shallow downward angle. The headlights showed hastily cut living rock, the seams and veins visible as the tunnel descended through layers and lodes. There was crude and deteriorating bracing of riveted steel girders, and the whole thing was faced with rusting steel mesh. This kept most of the rocks out, but there was one part where we had to get out and manhandle some small boulders and rock fall where it had broken through into the open space of the tunnel. This place hadn’t seen any maintenance in a while.

About a quarter mile down there was another huge double door, with a smaller, man-sized one inset into one side. We opened these too, with less difficulty since it hadn’t been exposed to the elements at all. We drove through, into a vast open space the size of an indoor sports stadium, perhaps two hundred yards across and a hundred high. Huge girders braced the roof, and more steel mesh. There were only a few rock falls that had broken through, along with a trickle of water that was forming limestone riffles and tiny stalactites along the rising, sloping wall-ceiling.

There were rows of vehicles covered in dull green canvas tarpaulins – five-ton and deuce-and-a-half trucks, vintage jeeps, and construction vehicles, things I didn’t recognize that could be some kind of mining and cutting equipment. I saw a row of dusty glass windows along one side, and several doors. Two truck-sized tunnel openings led even deeper.

We got out and turned off the engines, but left the truck lights on. Ten people shuffled around the four modern vehicles in the eerie silence, punctuated by dripping water and the sound of our engines cooling.

Elise rubbed her arms, then pulled someone’s jacket out from behind a seat and put it on. I suppressed a flash of jealousy as I saw it wasn’t mine. I should have thought of that. She had nothing but the clothes she was wearing. I resolved to fix that situation. I resolved to give her whatever she needed.

“What is this place?” asked Roger, peering nearsightedly around through his thick glasses. It appeared the question was somewhat rhetorical, for he started to answer it himself. “Some kind of government bunker, built back in World War Two…but that backhoe is a 1950s model.”

“Right,” answered Zeke. “The Sosthenes bunker was commissioned in 1940 during the Battle of Britain, when they thought there would eventually be a chance of air raids on the East Coast by the Third Reich. They had some super-bombers in development that never panned out. Then as that threat waned, they kept building because of the possibility of the Nazis getting the A-bomb – and because they’d already paid for it. Never underestimate the inertia of a government contract and jobs in a Senator’s home state. It was to be a place for continuity of governance, where the President, Congress and the Supreme Court could continue to function. It was kept active into the cold war, through the changeover to the Greenbrier bunker, code named ‘Greek Island,’ in 1961.”

Arthur crossed his arms. “No way this kind of construction could withstand a nuclear attack. The whole thing would probably collapse. Glass in the windows? This is pathetic!”

“Remember, they had no idea until the first test how powerful an atomic blast would be. It even surprised the scientists working on it. That’s why they built the Greenbrier bunker, after they knew what it would take. Remember, we were stretched to the limit in the Big One. Once it ended, we breathed a big sigh of relief – for about four years. The Soviet Union detonated its first atomic bomb in 1949 and immediately started to turn the screws with the Berlin blockade. So the US geared up for the Cold War. The government initiated Project Greek Island in the 1950s and once they had that super-bunker, this place got mothballed. Fortunately for us, over the next fifty or sixty years, it got forgotten about too.”

“How do you know they won’t dig up the information on its existence, pardon the pun?” I asked.

“Because I searched every database I could access and deleted all references to it. I buried the only hardcopy file I could find in the basement of the Pentagon, and I took the keys out. It’s in the wrong box on the wrong shelf in the wrong vault, in a section that has already been digitized. But the Sosthenes file never was digitized. It was
intended
to be secret. So barring incredible luck or a tipped-off search taking thousands of man-hours, no one knows about this.”

“Except that mining official.”

“Sure, but all he knows is he ran into some unknown government property bounded by a fence. He never got in. Once I took a look I knew I couldn’t let anyone in on this. I told him it was hazardous waste storage, and if their mining operations got too close they could release toxic materials. And…I kinda let slip something about nerve gas and national security.”

Several of us chuckled. “So he thought you were giving him a cover story and it was really old chemical weapons.”

“Yup. So unless all hell breaks loose and the government actually comes out into the open to find us, enlists the public, it’s very unlikely anyone will connect the dots. If they do…at least we have our Alamo.”

“They all died at the Alamo, boss,” muttered Larry.

“Okay, bad metaphor. It’s our Cheyenne Mountain, how’s that.”

“That’s good, that’s an Air Force Base,” I chimed in.

“Smartass blue-suiter. How about I show you the best part.”

“I hope it involves food, because we only got enough for a couple days,” Larry complained.

Zeke’s ever-present grin got wider. “Oh, baby, you have no idea. Here, let’s run a jump.”

He drove the Land Rover over to a diesel generator sitting by the wall, then hooked up his jumper cables. A moment later he had the machine started, and a faint orange glow started above our heads from dozens of sodium lamps. Not all of them worked, but there were enough. We turned off the car lights to conserve our batteries.

I wondered about the diesel emissions until I noticed its exhaust pipe ran up to a hole in the wall. The air in the cavern seemed fairly fresh, too. There must be some natural ventilation, like in those ‘breathing caves’ found here and there.

Zeke walked over to the door at the end of the long row of windows. Vinny went with him. He turned on the lights inside, which were faint and flickering fluorescents. They looked like they wouldn’t last much longer. If we were going to refurbish and use this place, light bulbs were only the first of many things we would need.

“Oh man, this is a trip!” Vinny blurted, looking at the half-century old equipment.

“Yep, and not a computer in sight. Just good old dials, knobs and switches.” Zeke flipped some of the switches and the lights came on in the two big tunnels, stretching deeper down into the mountain. The generator coughed and strained under the increased load. He flipped another two switches and two-thirds of the sodium lamps above our heads went off. There was still plenty of light.

“What happens when we run out of diesel?” I asked him.

“That’s just for temporary use. Let’s go down and get this place running again. Larry, Roger, Vinny, you come with me. We’ll get the hydroelectric plant going. You guys look around up here. There shouldn’t be anything more dangerous than falling rocks. That reminds me – I suggest everyone wear a helmet. If you don’t have one, there are hard hats in there,” he said, pointing to a storage-room door.

It took about four hours but eventually the tone of the generator changed, and a plethora of ancillary lights came on – exit lights over doors, secondary lights in the rooms behind the windows, and the sodium lamps got brighter. I also felt the soughing of a ventilation fan, apparently to supplement the natural air. That would help if we had to run any vehicles. Spooky took it upon himself to turn off the diesel generator, and nothing bad happened. It looked like the hydroelectric power was up and running.

We’d been keeping busy exploring the cavern and the installations around it. There were locker rooms with showers and toilets, and after a lot of running, the water from the pipes cleared. The hot water faucets even ran fairly warm. There must be a hot spring or something like that. Life would be a lot better down here with hot water.

There were offices with carefully mothballed manual typewriters, sealed canisters of replacement ribbons and bottles of ink. There were airtight boxes with paper and envelopes and manila folders, straight out of the 1950s. There were light bulbs and extension cords and fans and swivel chairs and a whole huge room full of shelves stocked with automotive parts in tinfoil and cellophane packing. There were cans of bearing grease and motor oil and differential oil and paint and ammonia and on and on and on. I wondered how much money we could get for some of this stuff in an online auction. I knew one source of income we had if nothing else.

A lot of stuff was unusable after all this time, but some was pristine, like the day it was made. I looked at a perfect, shiny set of hubcaps for the 1948 Ford Super Deluxe sitting on its flattened tires in the big cavern. The car itself had 257 miles on the odometer. It would probably fetch a year’s pay at an auction. This place was a museum and a goldmine.

How right I was. Later on, Zeke showed us stacks of mint gold and silver coins in a vault, placed there to ensure the occupants had money if paper currency collapsed. There were also bundles of uncirculated US bills from the 1940s, which would fetch more than face value to collectors. There was at least twenty million dollars in there.

Now I knew why Zeke hid that file. He was as honest and patriotic as the next guy but who wouldn’t be tempted by twenty million in ready cash and all this cool stuff? And it was all unknown, a victimless crime, a treasure trove just waiting half a century for someone to put it to use. I felt slightly guilty, but there were far more important considerations. If using this wealth was a sin, then it was the least of many evils.

We spent the next day moving in and trying to get the basics working in the bunker. There were months of effort in front of us if we were to live here long term.

There was a residence level, with about a hundred individual rooms. There were open bays that could house many more people in less comfort. Elise and I took rooms next to each other. Neither of us trusted the emotions born of those first intense moments, and we were giving it time. I was okay with that, but we did spend a lot of time together, talking around our feelings, spiraling closer.

Struggling with not letting our physical desires for each other take over, I realized more and more how much we were slaves to our own biology. There was an old saw about ‘if you don’t control your passions, your passions control you.’ I resolved to remain my own master, no matter what the Eden Plague did to me.

We ate in a cafeteria with a kitchen attached. Right now food preparation consisted of dumping cans into saucepans and heating up the contents. Zeke called a meeting for dinnertime, and we gathered there at one long table. He talked on his feet, pacing up and down, while we ate.

“We have electricity, food, heat, air, and supplies. We need to discuss our next move.”

“What ‘we,’ Kemo Sabe?”

Laughter from the older people. Elise and Vinny looked confused.

“I’ll explain later,” I told her. She was ten years younger than I was. Probably had barely even heard of the Lone Ranger.

“Seriously. What are we going to do?”

A long silence. A raised hand.

“Yes, Roger?”

“We need to set up a lab again. We need equipment. An electron microscope. DNA sequencers. Computers.”

“Noted. You three scientists draw up a wish list.”

“We need to set up the satellite dish, get comms up. We need internet, preferably tap into a landline somewhere,” said Vinny.

“Ditto. Make a list. You’ll be on the shopping team.”

I crossed my arms. “Aren’t we getting ahead of ourselves? These are details. We need to discuss the bigger questions.”

“Such as?”

“Identity. Policy. Strategy. Structure. What are we? Are we just a bunch of outlaws? Are we an A-team? A township? Does everyone start bringing their families in here? Or do some of you who can, go back to a normal life and keep this knowledge to yourself? Because any one of us could blow the whole thing wide open, and get everyone buried deep in government black.”

Zeke blew air past his lips. “All right, good questions. Anyone?”

Elise said, “I think I speak for all of the former INS employees when I say we want to stay here for now and resume our research. This involves the fate of humanity. I don’t trust Jenkins or the government to handle it right. As long as this doesn’t turn into some kind of freaky cult, I don’t care much what the policy and strategy is. Not right now.”

Skull spoke. “We need to agree on some ROE, though. Rules of Engagement. Such as, no one they are looking for can leave the bunker unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

“He’s right,” I said. “That means me and the INS people stay. And, nobody tells anyone else about the situation without everyone’s agreement.”

“Everyone? That’s cumbersome.”

I responded, “Okay, then majority agreement? Right. I’ll start first. My dad lives a couple of hours from here. He has his own plane and some land. They will probably be watching him because of me, but we can agree in advance that he can be told and he will eventually come in, but only when we are sure it’s safe.”

Nods all around.

“And I know Zeke is waiting to say what he wants, so I’ll say it for him. His family. Wife and two kids. The longer we wait, the more likely they will connect him to me and the harder it will be to get them here. Zeke?”

“Yeah. What DJ said. I want them brought here. And my mom. She’s in a home with Alzheimer’s. She doesn’t even know me anymore. I don’t mean to sound cold-blooded but we might as well try the Eden Plague on her. She’s just in God’s waiting room right now anyway. It would be worth whatever side effects if her mind was restored, even for a couple of years.”

“Everyone okay with that?”

Vinny said, “Why don’t we just all agree that any immediate family that will be brought here, and we trust, can come in. But don’t tell anyone that’s going to stay on the outside.”