Twisting Topeka (12 page)

The food supplies were old and no
doubt unsafe to eat, but in enough abundance to last Ellis’ family
of six over a year. He wondered if the fruit and vegetable seeds
would still grow.

“
What are you doing down
here, son?”

Ken jumped. His dad stood in the
hatchway with his arms crossed.

“
We should refurbish this
thing and restock it.”

“
Why would we do
that?”

“
To save our lives when
Iran and North Korea mess up and blow up the world.”

His dad laughed and shook his head.
“You sound like Grandpa Ellis. Only he worried about Russians
blowing us up.”

“
How can you laugh? You’re
the one who joined the Kansas Patriot Responders. Their whole
mission is to help defend this country, if we get attacked by
foreign or domestic enemies. This would be a great place to use as
a base of operations should something happen.”

His dad, who had served thirty-five
years with the Army’s Corps of Engineers before retiring two months
ago, glanced over the supply racks. He looked over his shoulder at
the living area before refocusing on Ken.

“
You’re right. But counting
the members of my unit, their spouses, and children, there’s not
enough space for everyone. We’d need to purchase the missile silo
across the road and build enough living pods to house, feed, and
support over four hundred people. We’d also need to make
accommodations for livestock. Not to mention planting hydroponic
gardens, finding a power source, and filtering breathable air and
safe drinking water.”

Ken grabbed a shovel from a wall hook.
“Let’s do it.”

That night at dinner, his mother’s jaw
dropped. “You’re doing what?”

Ken looked at his dad. “We’ll blast
through the rock and make living pods just like the one
Great-Grandpa Ellis made when the military built the silo across
the road. It will be our underground ark for surviving nuclear
disaster.”

“
James Crawford, you’ve
warped this boy’s mind with all your survivalist talk.”

“
There’s nothing warped
about him. He’s talking sense. I researched underground cities this
afternoon and it can be done with enough concrete and steel to
protect against ground shifts. And purchasing the silo will cut
down on some of the digging and construction work needed.” He
reached over and took her hand. “Face it, Carol, with the way
things are going, even if there isn’t a nuclear Armageddon, we may
need a place to hide our families from those committing
genocide.”

She threw up her hands. “Fine, but
where will you get the money?”

Seven Years
Later

Ken stared up at the gigantic
windmills. Transforming the Crawford Cattle Ranch into a wind farm
had not only generated revenue to finance building the underground
ark; the huge turbines also powered the community.

He walked to one of the windmills and
entered a door in its base. Inside, a ladder went up for
maintenance and a hatchway opened down into what insiders called
New Topeka. He climbed down into a decontamination chamber and
passed through to a corridor where an underground stream ran
through a covered trench in the center. The portal he entered next
led into one of ten hydroponics gardens where fruits and vegetables
grew.

Alicia stood in a row, picking ripe
strawberries. He kissed her on the cheek.

“
How’s the harvest
going?”

“
Great! We’ll have plenty
of food for our wedding banquet.”

He wrapped his arms around her. “I
still wish we were having the banquet below ground to help christen
the ark.”

She stiffened. “We’re holding the
wedding topside like normal people.”

“
I know. Besides, Mom is
ecstatic that we’re holding the ceremony in her flower garden and
Dad already has the barbeque in the smoker.” He touched his nose to
hers. “And…I’m happy we won’t have far to go to start our
honeymoon.”

She frowned. “I wish our first home
together wasn’t a living pod in New Topeka.”

“
We talked about this.
Living in our pod will help us save money for a down payment on our
own house.”

“
We could live in the
apartment above Dad’s garage.”

“
And I’d have to commute to
the ranch every day. Besides, once the satellite dishes I ordered
arrive, I’ll need every moment I can get each day to get our rural
Internet service off the ground and running.”

“
You’re right. I’ll do my
best to get used to it.”

Ken gave her a reassuring kiss before
leaving the garden. He walked further down the stream corridor and
entered the underground pasture, which was built to support enough
livestock to provide residents with enough milk, eggs, and protein
for a healthy diet. He bent down and felt the five inch tall
pasture grass. A week ago they started keeping a small herd of
inside to see how well the animals assimilated to underground
living. So far the cattle and horses seemed content to roam around
the huge cavern, which received sunlight through a lead glass
designed to stop radiation and chemical leakage. A rooster crowed
and pig squealed, the sounds echoing through the manmade
cavern.

As he listened to the familiar
barnyard sounds, he wondered how noisy a second animal habitat
built near the missile silo entrance would get. Like Noah, they
arranged to house several varieties of animals, which would
transfer in from the Topeka Zoo in the event of an emergency. The
underground zoo offered the animals the same environments they
lived in at Gage Park, but would require a full zoo staff to
maintain compared the few ranch hands who would take care of the
animals in the pasture chamber.

“
There you are.”

Ken stood and joined his dad in the
corridor. “How many families do we have on the roster?”

“
We’re up to forty-five
families and thirty-one singles. We still have fifteen family pods
and twenty-one studio apartments available.”

They walked along the corridor to a
landing where the stream turned into a waterfall to fill a pond in
a park area below. Ken looked down and watched the fish swim while
his father reviewed the latest enrollment information with
him.

“
A few Patriots don’t think
living underground is for them. They’d rather be up top helping
survivors get to medical care and safety.”

“
You’d think with how the
hate groups are killing innocent people without reason, they’d at
least want their families in here safe from harm.”

His dad nodded. “We can’t force anyone
to live down here. The most we can do is make room for them should
they change their minds.”

Ken watched as construction workers
continued to create what in essence amounted to a utopia. In the
town square, a library held not only how-to books like those
Great-Grandpa Ellis had collected, but also biographies, fiction,
poetry, music, movies, and a school. An infirmary equipped to
handle radiation and chemical poisoning was built with a direct
access elevator from the outside. Around the town square waited
chambers where residents could set up shops and cafés.

“
Do you think we’ve planned
for every need?”

His dad put an arm around his
shoulder. “We’ve accommodated for people, plants, and animals. And
until the time comes when we need to live here, members can use
their living pods for vacations and weekend getaways.”

“
Alicia doesn’t want to
live down here.”

“
You’re more than welcome
to live in the ranch house with Mom and me.”

Ken shook his head. “I can’t explain
it, but I feel called to help others adjust to living underground.
And to do that, I need to live here to understand how living below
ground affects our psychological well being.”

“
So that’s why you minored
in sociology while majoring in computer science and multi-media
communications.”

Eleven Months
Later

“
Push!”

Ken wiped sweat off Alicia’s brow as
she bore down and gave birth to their son. Dr. Wilson cut the cord
and handed him the child. He looked down at the little red, slimy,
squirming infant in his hands and laughed.

“
You did it, Babe. The
first child born in New Topeka.”

“
Let me…see him,” she
gasped.

He laid their son on her stomach and
she cradled her hands around him. “He’s beautiful.”

A siren sounded and the nurse switched
on a radio. Amid the bustle of cleaning up their son and the
birthing room, they listened to news reports about how an accident
in the Middle East released not only radiation, but chemical nerve
agents into the jet stream. Millions of people were dying in the
Mediterranean and Asia. In retaliation, North Korea launched its
nuclear arsenal on the Middle East and claimed missiles exploding
in Europe, Asia, and Africa were targeting accidents.

“
Ken, we need to get the
animals moved in, now,” his dad yelled.

He kissed his wife. “I’ll be back. We
have to get everyone inside before that deadly air passes into the
United States and over Kansas.”

Although she looked frightened, she
said, “Go! Little Noah and I will be fine.”

Ken rushed to a decontamination
chamber and put on a protective suit. From there he went to the
underground pasture and saddled his horse. Half the herd already
lived inside, but the remaining animals ranged outside. The long
tunnel they went through provided mass entry through three
air-locked, lead-lined, steel doors. Before each door opened, the
previous one closed to prevent contamination of the underground
ark.

“
How much time do we have?”
Ken asked.

His dad shook his head. “Not long.
Twelve to fifteen hours. The accident only happened six hours ago
and the Japanese estimate that nearly half their population was
affected. According to the weather reports, the jet stream has
several abrupt direction changes and is moving rather fast. If the
air jets don’t break up, this catastrophe could potentially affect
every nation on Earth within a day.”

Herding the livestock into the
underground pasture took eleven hours since they ran each animal
through a dip bath to rid them of parasites before releasing them
into the meadow. They checked in with the south entrance and
learned that the job of settling the zoo animals down took just as
long.

When they finally finished cleaning up
in the decontamination chamber, Ken’s dad walked to the end of the
stream corridor and checked the gauges on the water filtration
unit.

“
Colonel Crawford.” A
Patriot sentry stopped and saluted. “All members are present and
accounted for. What do we do about the extra people who have asked
to join us?”

“
How many?”

The sentry held out a clipboard.
“Ken’s in-laws and relatives of Patriots make up about two dozen.
The rest are outsiders.”

His dad studied the list. “We can only
take forty-two more people without risking over population. There
are over a hundred people on this list.”

“
I know, sir.”

Ken watched his dad put checkmarks
beside forty-two names. He breathed a sigh of relief when Alicia’s
folks received approval. As the sentry scurried off, he stared at
this man who just made such a life and death decision.

“
Do I dare ask how you
chose?”

They walked to the landing and looked
down over the harried activities of people locating their pods and
moving in boxes of personal belongings.

“
Noah from the Bible was
only allowed to bring his family and two pairs of each animal. Like
his ark, New Topeka is being colonized to help rebuild a whole
civilization. Other survivors around the world will find shelter,
but there will be those who will die suddenly from the nerve agents
like those in Asia. Others will get radiation sickness and die in a
matter of days, weeks, and months. There’s nothing we can do about
that. All we can do is keep those inside this community safe and
healthy. What I did to avoid overcrowding is take care of our own
first and our future second. Relatives are a no brainer. They’re
blood, you can’t turn them away. Next, I chose those important to
our future; teachers, ministers, and medical professionals. At that
point, I had three spots left; so I picked a fitness instructor, an
artist, and a poet.”

“
Why them?”

“
The fitness instructor
will help us keep our bodies in shape. The artist and poet will
help keep our minds open to creativity.”

*****

The news over the next few days came
sporadically. Ken used the above ground satellite dishes to tap
into the Internet as well as short wave radio to locate survivors
around the world. Each week he posted population counts by country
on the library bulletin board. The counts declined as infected
people succumbed to chemical and radiation poisoning. To put
variety in his figures he asked those reporting to him to give
demographics like sex, race, religion, age, and occupation when
they were available.