Authors: Eliza Lentzski
“Yup.” He grinned proudly. “Hot Springs, Montana, population just under 550.”
“Wow. And I thought North Dakota was small.”
“Is that where you’re from?”
I nodded and took a tentative bite of a pile of mystery goo. It tasted like a mixture of pudding and canned fruit. “Yeah,” I said around my mouthful. “I grew up just outside of Williston. It was one of those towns that got built up because of the oil boom.”
“Cool.” Ryan wiped at his mouth with a napkin. He balled it up and tossed it on his tray. “Well, I gotta get going. I’ve got kitchen duty. I’ll see ya around, Sam.”
Once again seated by myself, I returned my attention to the food on my tray. It wasn’t a feast, but the variety was a welcomed change from our usual fair of small game and canned fruit and vegetables. The fresh baked bread was my favorite. It reminded me of my grandmother.
I felt the table move just slightly when Nora plopped down next to me. She looked annoyed and I expected her to complain that I’d come to breakfast without her. “These powdered eggs look disgusting.”
“Beggers can’t be choosers,” I said. I didn’t tell her that they tasted disgusting, too. I’d let her discover that all on her own.
“Who was that guy you were talking to?” Nora asked. She stabbed experimentally at the yellow glob on her tray.
“Just some guy,” I shrugged. “He’s the one who carried me last night.”
Nora stared after Ryan. “He’s kind of cute. In a backwater kind of way,” she observed. “I suppose that’s your type though.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded.
“Nothing.”
I didn’t have time to dig deeper into her commentary because Nora’s father rushed over to our table. I hadn’t seen him since the previous night and he had a fine line of black stitches high on his temple. “Hurry up and finish your breakfast, girls,” he said, looking red in the face. “The Mayor wants to meet with us.”
+++++
Mayor Steven Klein was a diminutive man who wore a crisply ironed shirt tucked into pleated slacks. I didn’t know what I’d been expecting when Mr. West said we were going to meet the mayor of Hot Springs, but the man who stood up from behind an old metal desk when we entered his office, wasn’t the man I thought he’d be. Maybe because this underground complex had such a militaristic, rigid feel to it I’d thought the mayor would be, I don’t know, taller? Former military? More like the men who had found us near the springs themselves, at least. It was a little like pulling the curtain away to reveal that the Great and Powerful Oz was only a man.
“Welcome, welcome,” the man cheerfully greeted. He adjusted his too-large glasses on his nose. They were the kind once fashionable in the 1970s that came back again, but it was clear that Steve Klein did nothing with irony.
“I had heard you all were a little worse for the wear. How’s the leg?” he asked me.
I opened my mouth, but as usual, Nora was the first to speak up for me. “She needs better medical attention than what you’ve provided. I suggest rounding up a group of volunteers, heading over to the nearest hospital, and getting the medical supplies Dr. Allyse really needs.”
I glared at her. I was so sick of her speaking on my behalf. I had opinions. I could handle my own business. But I bit my tongue for the moment. I didn’t want to squabble in front of this man.
Mayor Klein steepled his fingers and looked deep in thought. “This here is a democracy, and I can’t just make decisions like that to use our town’s limited resources to go gallivanting around above ground in search of supplies. But twice a month we hold city council meetings for decisions and grievances such as yours, and you’re more than welcome to petition the Council to consider your request.”
“How very evolved,” my father murmured beside me.
Mayor Klein flashed my father a smile. “Well, we do our best. In times such as these, there’s need for structure and routine more than ever.”
“When’s the next meeting?” I asked. I knew my ankle would be fine, but I was still curious.
“Next Monday.”
“What day is it today?” my father asked. When we still lived in North Dakota he had kept careful record of the days of the week and the seasons that never came, but once we started on the road, those details had become unimportant.
“It’s Wednesday.” Mayor Klein sat back on his desk. “In the meantime, I’ll give the good doctor a call and authorize you for a hot springs bath. The water here does miracles, you know. In fact,” he chuckled at some untold joke, “our town’s motto is ‘Limp In, Leap Out.’”
A kind of awkward silence fell over us until Mr. West broke the ice. “This is an impressive structure, Mayor Klein,” he complimented.
Steve Klein shoved his hands into his pants pockets and leaned back on his heels. “Thank you. We try hard.”
“To be able to rig up a generator that works off geothermal energy,” Nora's father continued to openly admire, “that's no small accomplishment.”
Mayor Klein settled back on his feet.
“Are you familiar with such a thing?” he asked. He looked with interest upon our small group for the first time as though maybe he’d underestimated us.
Mr. West held out his hands. “The company I ran experimented with nontraditional and renewable energy sources. I know a few things,” he said without malice or pretension. It was one of the things I had come to admire most about Nora's father. He clearly was a successful, educated, and powerful man, but he never acted boastful or showy.
Mayor Klein regarded us for a moment longer while sucking on his teeth. He looked at my father. “And you? What did you do before the Frost?”
“I was a loan officer at a bank.”
“He’s gotten us this far and he saved those two from bandits,” I interjected. I felt the need to add to my dad’s resume. He was just as valuable and as good of a man as Jerry West. I glanced nervously at my dad, worried I’d spoken out of turn. The edges of his thin lips curled up.
“Bandits, hmm? Most unfortunate. But I suppose they’re to be expected when everything has gone to hell up there.” Mayor Klein shook his head. He clapped his hands, snapping us out of a melancholy that had seemed to slip over us like a fog. “Well then, I hope you’ll be happy here in Hot Springs.”
“You’re letting us stay?” my father inquired. “Just like that?”
Mayor Klein waved a dismissive hand. “There’s just the four of you. We’ve got enough space. Plus, I’m interested in your banking background. Perhaps we can talk about setting up some kind of economic system down here. The Council and I are keen to avoid people not pulling their weight.”
My father nodded. “I certainly can help with that.”
“And you, sir,” the Mayor added, looking to Mr. West. “Let’s chat technology. I’d love to pick your brain about some other ideas I have for our energy situation.”
Mr. West spread his hands open. “Of course. It’s the least I can do for you folks taking us in.”
“But, Dad,” Nora spoke up. “I thought we were –.”
“We’ll talk about it later, Nora,” Mr. West cut her off. Nora’s brow furrowed, but he gave her a pointed look that kept her silent. His voice was a little too loud and rushed for my liking, and that admiration I’d once felt turned into suspicion all over again.
+++++
After leaving the Mayor’s office, Nora and I walked back to the women’s bunks. My father had suggested we unpack our few possessions before meeting up again later at lunch. Mayor Klein had returned our backpacks, but they were significantly lighter. All of our food was gone and anything that remotely resembled a weapon had been confiscated – that included my hunting knife and, more obviously, Mr. West’s gun.
Nora had been conspicuously silent ever since her father had sharply reprimanded her in the Mayor’s office.
“So you and your dad are still planning on leaving?” I asked her.
She ran her fingertips along the smooth contours of the hallway wall. “I thought so – until just now,” she shrugged. “The plan was always to make it to Eden.”
“This place seems pretty nice though,” I noted, turning down the corridor and into the women’s barracks. “And what's to say Eden even exists?” The bunkhouse was relatively empty. Most people were still at breakfast or doing some assigned job, I supposed. I wondered when we’d be assigned something to do during the day.
“If my dad says Eden exists, then it exists,” Nora scowled. “Besides, it gives me something to believe in.”
We walked back to the bunk-bed where we’d spent the previous night.
“You could come with us?” Nora’s eyes fluttered. “You and your dad, I mean.” She started to unpack the few possessions in her backpack that hadn’t been confiscated. Each bunk-bed had a built-in shelving unit at the head of the bed and a small ladder at the foot.
“And give up a good thing for something that may not even exist?” I posed. Despite her insistence, I still wasn’t convinced Eden was real.
“This place isn’t going to stay ideal forever. It’s just going to get colder and more and more people will flock to this place.” Nora looked around the nearly vacant bunkhouse. “How long until this room is
filled
with desperate people? How long until the supplies run out?” Her eyes scrunched and she tilted her head. “And why haven’t they run out already?”
“They’ve obviously been planning this place for some time. It’s
underground
,” I pointed out.
Nora shook her head. “Maybe, but not as long as the government had been preparing Eden. We might as well be in a tin can buried beneath the ground. From what my dad’s told me, the government’s got thick walls of concrete and his company retrofitted everything to make the space as comfortable and livable as possible. They set it up for survival, not to just wait out the Frost.”
I scratched at the back of my neck. This place did seem like a comfortable haven compared to how we’d been living, even back in Williston. But how far ahead had those in charge planned? What happened when the temperature dropped so much that even the hot springs froze solid? How deep were we buried before the permafrost breached the walls? Would the practical thing be to keep looking for Eden while the temperature outside still allowed for comfortable travel? Or should we stay here until the situation grew dire enough that the existence of Eden was a last hope? Her words had a lot of truth to them.
“You look like the hamster wheel is working overtime,” Nora teased.
“I’ll talk to my dad about it,” I told her finally. “But I won’t go anywhere unless he’s coming, too.”
She regarded me, contemplatively. “You two are really close, huh?”
“Not particularly. Really only since the Frost,” I admitted. “I don’t think I appreciated him until then.”
She barely nodded. “I get that,” she said somberly. Her eyes had taken on a faraway look. I wondered if she was thinking about her mom or maybe someone else from her past.
I cleared my throat. “So, uh, what were you studying in college?” I wasn’t really curious, but I’d noticed she liked to talk about herself. Her sadness was contagious and I wasn’t in the mood to feel sorry for myself.
Her face brightened with the topic change. “Environmental sustainability.” She let out a bark of a laugh, but it held no amusement. “Ironic really.”
“How is that ironic?”
“I can make biodiesel and soap out of cooking fat, but I can’t make a fire without a lighter or matches. I could rig up solar panels to power an entire house, but I don’t know how to set-up a camping tent,” she went on. “Give me big, fancy, expensive lab equipment and I’ll cure world hunger. But give me simple tools and I’m useless.”
“Wow. You can do all that?” I openly admired.
She shrugged and gave me a half smile. “Fat lot of good it’s done us so far though,” she remarked. “My dad’s SUV ran out of gas, and we got attacked by bandits.”
I smiled despite myself. We’d gone a long way since then.
“Hey, you!” Nora called out loudly. A girl who’d been walking past our bunk-bed froze in place. “Where are you going?” Nora demanded.
I felt the urge to jab Nora in the ribs. She was being weird and rude. That was my job.
The girl quirked an eyebrow. “I’m going to take a shower?” She was wearing a towel around her midsection and she held miniature shampoo and conditioner bottles in one hand.
“A shower?” Nora echoed.
“Yeah.” The girl, who couldn’t have been older than 15 or 16, self-consciously tightened the towel around her body. “You know that thing where you turn on a faucet and water magically falls from the sky?” I didn’t blame her for the snarky tone. She hadn’t expected to be interrogated.
“There’s running water?” Nora’s voice pitched an octave higher. Her excitement was palpable.
“Um, yeah, they’re right over there.” The girl pointed to the opposite side of the bunk house where I saw an entryway I had yet to explore.
“We can take a shower!” Nora practically tackled me. Her arms went around my neck and my body lurched from the force of her excitement. If she had been any taller and me any smaller, she would have tossed me straight onto my back on the bed. Even though we’d spent the night sleeping next to each other, I didn’t like the butterflies that attacked my stomach when I thought about us in bed together.