Final Dawn: Escape From Armageddon (13 page)

     Hannah looked out the window and saw the roller coaster atop the nearby Stratosphere Hotel and remembered that Mark promised he’d ride it with her.

     “Mark!” She squealed, pointing out the window. “You promised me you’d go with me!”

     Mark was less than enthused. He wasn’t crazy about roller coasters to begin with. And a roller coaster on top of a skyscraper excited him even less. But a promise was a promise, after all, and he would do anything to please his
blushing bride.

     So despite his brother’s comments that he was henpecked, he dutifully crawled out of the jacuzzi, threw on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, and went to the bedroom to find some shoes.

     Hannah playfully walked up behind Bryan and pushed his head under water, to the delight of Sarah, who couldn’t stop giggling.

     “Henpeck
that!
” Hannah said.

     Mark invited Bryan and Sarah to go along, but they both opted out, saying they didn’t like heights.

     The Stratosphere was only two city blocks from their hotel, and it was a beautiful day, so the couple walked the distance. Or, at least most of it. They were almost there, when Hannah discovered she’d left her camera at the hotel.

     “Good. Then you won’t get to take a picture of me throwing up.” Mark said.

     “But Baby, think about it. This is the one and only time we’ll ever do this in our lifetime. I’ve got to get pictures to capture the moment.”

      So henpecked Mark gave in once again and
they returned to their hotel.

     “Would you mind going up by yourself while I play a few hands?” Mark asked as they passed a bank of blackjack tables on the way to the elevators.

     Hannah said “Not at all, my love.” And gave him a kiss for luck.

     Mark sat down and placed two hundred dollar bills on the table, and Hannah plodded off to the room.

     Ten minutes later she returned, with her face scarlet red, and trying her best to keep from laughing. Mark asked her what was so funny.

     “I can’t tell you. At least not here.”

     Mark left a twenty dollar chip for the dealer, put the rest in his pocket, and headed for the door, his bride in hand. All the way Hannah was trying to hold her laughter.

     Once outside in the sunshine, Mark said “Okay, silly girl, what’s so darn funny?”

     Hannah, whose face was still a bright red, said “I walked back into the room, and they weren’t in the jacuzzi anymore. They were sitting on the couch. How can I put this? Sarah finished her banana split, but apparently was still… hungry.”

     Mark laughed and said. “Really? Bryan and Sarah
? I never would have thought.”

     Hannah said “And in case there was ever any doubt, sailor boy, I can now confirm it. He is definitely your
little
brother.”

     The four had dinner together that night, their last in Vegas. There wasn’t a lot of eye contact, but there was some giggling. And Bryan and Sarah sat close to each other, no longer having to hide their fondness for
one another.

    
The next morning, they boarded a Southwest Airlines 737 to Dallas, then on to San Angelo. Looking out the window, Hannah was saddened to think she’d never have a chance to fly again. Nor to see this part of the country. But she was with the man she loved. She was no longer Hannah Jelinovic. She was now Hannah Snyder. She smiled as she repeated the name over and over in her mind.

     They had some rough times ahead of them, but as long as they were together, they’d be okay.

     She looked across the aisle at Bryan and Sarah, who’d lifted up the armrest between them to snuggle. Now that their relationship was out in the open, they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. You’d think that
they
were the newlyweds.

     Hannah looked at Mark, who shook his head and smiled. He said “Kids these days. What are ya gonna do?”

-27
-

     The first day back from his short honeymoon, Mark was back at the construction site, checking on its progress. It was nearing completion now. All of the buildings were up except for the second greenhouse. Several of the clear Plexiglas panels had been damaged in shipment and had to be reordered.

     While waiting for the panels to arrive, the contractor was working a punch-list of just over two hundred minor problems that his quality control people had found in their pre-final inspection. A bank of wall outlets that weren’t working, a minor water leak in one of the rooms, a bathroom that somehow missed getting painted…

     But all in all, it looked good. Within two weeks the project would be ready for Mark’s final inspection. And so far so good, it still hadn’t made the local media. The contractor was very close to getting his secrecy bonus.

     Mark returned to the mine as
Bryan was pulling in with a truckload of industrial batteries for the mine’s power plant.

     There were thirty of them.
Each one was three feet high and four feet square, made to power an electric forklift. When they were filled with sulfuric acid and distilled water, each one would contain enough power to run that forklift for up to three hours, as it drove around and carried loads of up to 4,000 pounds.

     Except they weren’t planning to put the batteries on any forklifts.

     These batteries, or at least twenty of them, would be lined up on a four inch thick rubber base inside Bay 14. They would be interconnected with positive and negative cables to form a huge battery bank capable of supplying all of the mine’s power requirements for up to thirty six hours.

     Like a similar setup
in the compound next door, all of the mine’s lights, televisions, and washing machines, and everything else electric, would draw their power from the batteries. The batteries, in turn, would be constantly recharged by city power from nearby Junction, as long as their power station was up and running. They would also receive intermittent power from the wind turbine on the mountain above them whenever the wind was blowing. And whenever the power level within the batteries dropped below thirty percent, one of two huge diesel generators, sitting adjacent to the battery bank and vented to the outside, would kick in to bring the batteries back to one hundred percent. The second generator would likely never be used. It was there just in case the first one ever broke down.

    
Redundancy, once again. It could save their lives someday.

    
Bryan was an electrician by trade, and was proud of the job he’d done setting up the electrical system. He hoped that the city power station would run for months or even years before it shut down, but he knew it really depended on how dedicated its work crews were.

     He didn’t want to think about the conditions people would face on the outside. With no crops to grow, they’d have to scavenge for what
little food was left in the stores, and the carcasses of dead animals. And those wouldn’t last forever. They’d have to keep fires burning constantly, to keep from freezing and to melt snow and ice for their water. It would be a miserable existence, and he suspected most of them would eventually give up.

     He made a mental note to himself never to complain about the conditions within the mine. It could be much worse.

     Bryan carried the other ten batteries to the back of the bay and stacked them neatly with a forklift. If any of the originals needed to be replaced during their time in the mine, they would be readily available. If not, they would eventually be transferred to the compound next door.

     Also in the back of the bay were 1,200 gallons of distilled water for the battery bank. Distilled water caused less corrosion to the cells within the batteries and extended their life. Regular water would do as a backup in the event they ran out of distilled later on, but
Bryan was pretty sure that 1,200 gallons would be enough.

     Once
Bryan finished stacking the batteries, he checked on the girls to see if they needed help. They were in the back of Bay 9, in the food stores, carefully going through the 304 pallets of food that had been assembled there.

     Mark helped them as they went through each pallet and pulled out 46 cases of
Hamburger Helper. Then they checked the shelf-life of each case and stacked them against the wall, with the cases expiring first on top and in front. That way they’d be used first. It would be three years before the first of them started to expire, but putting them in order would ensure that none went bad before they were used.

     Lastly, Hannah computed how many total calories were in the 46 cases, marked that number on her inventory sheet, and
went on to the next item.

     The next item
was dried tortellini.

     “Eww, I hate
tortellini.” Bryan said playfully. Mom always made me eat it all before I could go out to play. I don’t think I ever forgave her for that.”

     Sarah said “Well, if that’s what the kitchen makes and you don’t want it, I guess you’ll go hungry. I’ll eat it for you, and give you my broccoli. How’s that for a deal?”

     “I hate broccoli even more.”

     Hannah said “Get to work, you big
cry baby, or we’ll send you to help Mark.”

    
Bryan stopped complaining and got back to work. He knew what Mark was doing and wanted no part of it.

     Mark grunted as he dragged another floor panel out of its wooden crate and into place.

     He was at the front of the mine, just inside the entrance, laying out the p
anels of a very large pre-fabricated drive-in freezer unit. It came in pieces, like a large erector set, and each piece bolted together. Once completed, the freezer would measure thirty feet by forty feet, and would keep the food inside at a constant twenty degrees.

     This, of course, was the first time Mark had ever assembled a pre-
fabricated freezer unit, but once he was done he’d be an expert. And that would make it much easier to assemble an identical unit at the feed store down the highway.

     It took him three hours to manhandle the floor panels into place. Th
e wall pieces were a bit lighter, since they didn’t have to be sturdy enough to be driven on with forklifts. He found all the pieces that would be placed on the back wall and lined them up neatly onto the floor. It would take two people to assemble the wall pieces. One to raise each piece up and slip it into a locking channel on the floor’s outer edge, and the other to bolt the pieces together.

     Once they got started, Mark expected the process to move fairly quickly. But not now. He was tired and needed a break. And it was lunchtime.

     He joined the others in Bay 9 and asked if anybody wanted to drive into Junction for a burger.

     “Hey, that gives me an idea!”
Bryan said.

     Hannah responded “Well, that’s never happened before.”

     “I wonder if a double Whopper is good after it’s been frozen and reheated. And I wonder what the girl at Burger King would say if I ordered 500 of them.”

    
Sarah said “You mean before or after she called the cops? I used to freeze hamburgers all the time in my dorm room freezer in college. The trick is you have to freeze them in a plastic zipper bag, and then let them thaw at room temperature. Once it’s completely thawed, then microwave it for like 30 seconds or so. It’s not quite as good as fresh-made, but it’s close.”

     Mark interjected. “Don’t encourage him, please.”

     “No, really, every word I said is true. And besides, I want to see her face when he orders 500 of them too.”

     Mark bought lunch for the four of them. He looked at
Bryan and said “It’s the least I can do, since you’re going to help me install the freezer panels this afternoon.”

    
Bryan replied “Well, I’d love to, big brother, but the girls need my help sorting and stacking the food.”

     Sarah and Hannah looked at each other and said, in perfect unison “No, we don’t.”

     By the end of the day, the girls had made a large dent in the food inventory, and the boys had the first of the two freezers half assembled. All in all, it was a productive day. Things were coming along nicely, and it looked like they would be able to get everything they needed finished just in time.

     Bryan didn’t order 500 cheeseburgers, but he did order a dozen. And he promised to do his own experiment to see if they made a tasty meal after being frozen and reheated.

     And as December rolled into January, and the weather became bitterly cold outside, the group had plenty to keep them busy in the warmer recesses of the mine. It also reminded them that they only had a year to go.
  

-28-