“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.”
“We just have to find them,” Tony said.
“Or have them find us,” Tom’s voice dropped and he turned his chair. “What have we here?”
We all looked at the monitor feed from the scope.
Clearly someone was climbing the fence. When we caught the image, they dropped a bag. It was a smaller person, possibly a woman.
“Turn the scope,” Tony said. “Check the entire perimeter fence.”
The camera scope rotated to a panoramic view.
“Only at the front,” Tom reported.
“There’s more than one,” I said. “I can’t make out how many. They’re rippling.”
“Heat waves,” Peter explained. “They probably jumped from basement to basement making their way here. This place was public knowledge. An old silo.”
“What do they want?” I asked.
“In.” Tony answered. “The gate, main doors and hatch are all manual. Just in case we lose power. Is the hatch secure?” he asked Tom with some urgency.
“I’m not sure.”
“I’ll radio Skyler…”
“No.” Tom opened the drawer next to him and pulled out a revolver, then a radio. “I can make it to the hatch faster than Sky. He’s below. Pete. Monitor this, keep us posted.”
“Will do.” Peter took over Tom’s chair.
Tony reached down and turned on his radio. “I’ll head to the blast doors. Keep me posted if they get close, because I know for a fact that’s not locked.”
Tony raced out as I called his name.
“How many are out there?” I asked Peter.
Peter moved his hand over the screen. “Ten, twelve. Hard to say. There may be children, or they could just be their bags. The fence climber is opening the gate. Must be hot.”
I watched the screen, the person reached for the lock and jumped back. Upon seeing that, I raced from the switch room.
I knew what my goal was. Going after Tony, I ran up the stairs as fast as I could. When I reached the top and emerged into the bay, I heard Tom’s radio call.
“Hatch is secure.”
Then Peter’s voice. “They’re through the gate.”
It took a moment for me to catch my breath. The air was hot in the bay, I couldn’t even imagine what it was like outside.
I approached Tony.
He turned from the doors and walked my way. “No worries. They’re on the property, but they won’t get in. Doors are locked.”
I walked right by him.
“What are you doing?” His voice squeaked.
There were three heavy bolt latches that ran across the door. I shifted the first one.
“Anna.”
I shifted the second one.
“Anna.” He grabbed my hand. “What are you doing?”
“Letting them in.” I struggled with the third latch.
“You can’t do that.”
“This place is big…” I grunted. “It’s big enough. We have more than enough resources. You know that.”
“What we have isn’t my concern. It’s what is beyond that door. They broke in.”
“What were they supposed to do, Tony? Knock? Ring a bell? If we don’t let them in, they will die out there.”
“Is that really our problem?”
“There may be children out there.’
“We don’t know that.”
“I won’t risk it. You said, my house, my rules.” The last latch was really stuck and in my frustration I blasted. “Now help me open this goddamn door!”
“Fine!” Tony yelled back. “You’re making a mistake.” He freed the lock.
Without thinking, I grabbed the door.
“Anna, don’t open it…”
I should have waited for what he was saying because when I slid open the door, a blast of heat hit me like none I have ever felt. Obviously, he was giving me a warning.
I literally could not breathe. It was impossible to inhale or exhale. Tony yanked me back from the door and covered his mouth and nose with his shirt and moved back.
“Hurry. Make it quick!” Tony yelled out.
Once I was far enough away from the heat, I was able to catch my breath. When I did, I saw the people filing in. They were as apprehensive about entering as Tony was about letting them inside.
There were eleven and three of them were children.
Tony shut the door.
“Thank you. Thank you so much.” a woman said.
They stood there silently. Scared, dirty and covered with black, their clothes were tattered and they had burns. Many had burns that were fresh.
I looked at Tony who was studying them as if looking for a reason not to trust them.
“Come with me, we’ll take you below,” I said.
Taking a step forward, Tony grabbed my arm and whispered. “This was a mistake.”
“Then it was my mistake.” I started to walk and he stopped me again. “What?” I asked.
He looked at them, then at me. “I’m not giving up my room.”
With a shake of my head in disbelief, I walked from Tony and led the pack of survivors downstairs.
29 – RETHINKING
Things had calmed down a lot by early evening. Not that there were a ton of people, but we had just doubled our population. Joie was ecstatic to see children to play with. But play time would have to wait. Our new comers weren’t well.
It was my decision to let them in. Tony was verbal about his dismay; a couple of the others gave me glances but didn’t say a word. I realized since I had made the choice then I had to be the one to show it could work and it was the best choice.
Nelly made a huge kettle of soup and it went far, feeding everyone.
I wasn’t really that hungry, but I ate because I needed to. I also needed to start organizing. For some reason people looked to me to run the bunker, because it was designed for me. I wanted to hand that task over to Tony, but seeing how I was never one to shirk my responsibilities, I would do the best I could.