High Pressure System: First Season Underground (13 page)

“It’s so late though.”

“I was at Jim’s before I came here. I made sure he was in bed before I came to see you.” He wasn’t in bed then but he should be now.

“It sounds like you’re making house calls. Too bad you aren’t a real nurse.”

“I wouldn’t be a very good one. This part is easy. Dealing with the gross stuff, not so much.”

After I pressed my thumb onto the recognition pad, I was overcome with the feeling I was about to get caught doing something I shouldn’t. It wasn’t the same feeling I had when I was caught in the hall by the storm either. Locked in a room with Micah at night. He might have been about to kiss me. His apartment sure wasn’t the most romantic place though. I was eager to return to his realistic outdoor simulator. It wasn’t pretend like the planetarium, indoor outdoor simulator.

“How do you keep the bees from escaping?”

“I usually keep the door closed and there’s an air current that keeps most of them from leaving the room.” He opened the door to his oasis for me.

“This room is amazing. You really like to dig and plant things.” I didn’t have nearly that much ambition for anything.

“I like keeping my mind from thinking.” He fanned a bee away from my head. “Lately I’ve been pushing thoughts of you out of my mind.”

“Someone else has been trying to do the same thing. Why does everyone want to forget I exist?” I didn’t expect that observation to sting as much as it did and Micah didn’t have an actual stinger. My eyes teared up.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. Who else said that?”

“You know who.” I turned away to dry my eyes without looking obvious.

“I tried to stop thinking about you because of him. I thought I was too late.”

“He didn’t want to have anything to do with me until he figured out you might like me. That’s all I can figure. He brushed me off every time I tried to make conversation when I was trying to figure him out. I have been trying with you too. You were doing the same thing, blowing me off, for all I could tell.”

He ran his hand through his hair and rubbed his face. “I thought … Never mind what I thought. That doesn’t matter now, does it?” He pushed my hair over my shoulder with the back of his hand. His fingers tickled my neck giving me a chill.

“You were just thinking about giving me a boxing glove, huh?” He laughed a little to himself.

I shrugged. My heart wasn’t as indifferent as I was trying to play it. I could almost hear my heart beat in my ears again. If he touched me once more, he might launch some fireworks and who knows what would happen at that point.

I yawned. Then he did too. If there was anything like a sparkler going on between us, the yawns extinguished it.

All he did was reach for my hand and we walked through his garden until we were at the sofa.

Once we sat down, he slouched until his head was resting on the back of the sofa. He tugged my arm until I scooted closer. I rested my head on his shoulder. The sound of water rushing over the waterfall was so soothing that I relaxed my body beside him and closed my eyes.

“Rachel.” Micah’s voice was in my head. I thought for sure I was dreaming and I didn’t want to wake up.

“Rachel.” The tone in his voice concerned me. I couldn’t figure out why he would be distressed and waking me up.

I rubbed my eyes and sat up.

“I need to go to the doctor now that lock-down is over.”

“Oh?” I didn’t know where I was. He stood up and I did my best to follow.

“Are you Ok?” It was coming back to me. I was at Micah’s and we were about to leave. Bummer.

“The pain is much worse. Something feels very wrong.”

I grabbed Micah’s sleeve and turned him around. I unwrapped his hand. The fingers looked raw and weepy and the peeling skin was further down his fingers.

“Come on.” I was awake and ahead of him as we left his apartment.

I had never roamed the halls or had been in the stairs so late at night. Usually I could hear small echoes or rumblings on the floors when people moved around in their apartments. The stairway was eerily silent as our footfalls echoed off the walls.

“It doesn’t look like the last storm flooded the stairs,” I said.

“They are trying to dig a drainage shaft off the landing below the lobby.” Micah’s voice was strained like he was in pain.

He passed me and he picked up the pace to the medical floor.

When I followed Micah into the waiting room, there was a flurry of activity going on in and out of one of the rooms.

The nurses didn’t seem to notice we were there.

I tried not to get in their way as I attempted to get their attention. “Excuse me.”

“Hold on a minute.” The nurse didn’t even look at me. She jogged to the closet to collect a few things before running back into the room.

Micah went to the door and his face drained of color. “That’s Travis,” he whispered.

I gently held his arm, standing behind his shoulder as we watched them try to resuscitate the man in the bed.

“I didn’t think he was hurt that serious.” Micah started to tremble. I pulled him away from the door and made him sit in a chair.

His brushed away the tears from his cheek. I couldn’t help it, my eyes teared up too.

I stood near the door and stopped a nurse that seemed to act as if the crisis in the room was over. “Is he gone?” I whispered.

She nodded.

“Was it the acid water that did it?” I asked.

“Even though we cleaned him thoroughly, it seemed as if the acid was still there and didn’t stop burning his body.”

Micah watched my conversation with the nurse very intently.

“I think we need to stop what’s going on with Micah’s hand in a hurry then.” I pointed at him.

We all realized the seriousness of Micah’s peeling hand at once.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve washed it. I don’t know what to do to make it stop eating away the skin.”

She led Micah into another room. I hovered near the doorway and my mind was whirling. There was something I knew. Something to help with acid. I wracked my brain from way back when I would research the things my father was studying. My way of quietly rebelling against the chemical compounds he would test on animals. I always believed there were better solutions. When I came up with all sorts of useful information, I would email it to him. What I was trying to remember came flooding back.

The closet door was open next to the room. I saw exactly what I was looking for. Now if I could get the nurse, the doctor, and Micah to cooperate.

I entered the room and the nurse and the doctor were discussing what to do with his hand.

“We can peel the rest of the affected skin off his hand. However, I’m concerned with what happened to the young man in the other room that we may have to consider drastic measures of sacrificing your hand to save the rest of you.”

Micah’s eyes were wide and he shook his head vehemently against the doctor’s advice.

“Why don’t you try neurtralizing the acid with this.” I held out the box of baking soda.

“Don’t you think we would have considered that if it would help? The disinfecting soap and Betadine should have taken care of it the first time we washed it.” The doctor waved me away.

“I’m all for trying anything before you start cutting away skin or consider cutting my hand off. That is drastic.” Micah pulled his hand away from the doctor.

“I’m just trying to give you the potential worst case scenario. It took no time for that young man to deteriorate from his chemical burns. No time should be wasted with experimentation if you really want to save your hand and your life.”

“More like horror stories before you even try the most basic thing. Baking soda cleans acid off battery terminals. If this is a chemical burn, I’d rather try that.” Micah protected his hand from the doctor.

“It might hurt.” I warned. He was right about battery acid. That was why I brought the baking soda in the room. Whenever the posts are cleaned of battery acid buildup, the baking soda always foams and bubbles as it does its job. I had no idea what it would feel like on skin.

“Let’s try it.” Micah jumped off the observation table and was at the sink in no time. He held his hand over the sink and waited for me.

The doctor was genuinely miffed as he left the room. “Tell me when you’re done with your experimenting and need me to salvage what’s left.”

The nurse hovered nearby. I felt I was treading where I didn’t belong.

“Would you like to help him and see if it works?” I asked the nurse.

At first she shook her head. I awkwardly held his hand and the moment he flinched when I just sprinkled the powder on his hand, she stepped in.

“I changed my mind. He’s going to need to tough it out, I need to keep an eye on what it’s doing and you are obviously too sensitive to hurt your boyfriend.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I said in unison with Micah’s, “She’s not my girlfriend.”

We both looked at each other red faced and I stepped away.

Good thing I let the nurse deal with him. He fussed when the water and the baking soda combined together on his hand. It foamed all around the worst wounds on his fingers. He clenched his jaw, moaning in pain. The nurse gripped his arm under hers and worked over his hand. His pain was escalating. He started pulling, begging her to stop.

“Come on now. Remember, you want to keep your hand,” the nurse chastised him.

He rested his forehead on her shoulder as he struggled to manage the pain and keep himself from screaming. All I could do was stay out of the way and wait it out.

When Micah walked back to the examination table, his face was flushed and he wouldn’t look at me.

“I’m sorry,” I said, unsure of whether to get any closer.

“It’s not your fault.” He clenched his jaw and gripped his wrist. “I didn’t think I’d be such a baby about it.”

I stared hard at the pattern on the tile floor. No sense in drawing more attention to what was already an uncomfortable experience for us both.

“I’m sure the doctor will want to keep you here to watch what happens to it over the next few hours.” The nurse examined his hand. “We sure made it angry. It is going to take time before we can tell if your little experiment worked.”

I didn’t want to add what else I thought Micah should try to help it while in the clinic. I might get myself banned. So I kept my mouth shut, which was hard. I was so tired, I couldn’t control my yawning.

“You should go home and rest. I’m sure you’ll need it if you’re still going to teach in a few hours.” Micah finally looked at me.

“I’m sure I won’t sleep. I’ll wonder if you’re okay the whole time.” I stuffed my hands in the pockets of my sweatshirt and took a real interest in my right foot.

The nurse had a funny smirk on her face when she left the room.

“I’ll tell you what, if they let me out of here, I’ll come find you. Even if you’re busy teaching and let you know all about the status of my hand. If you don’t see me, you’ll know to come here.”

I felt weirdly emotional. “If they don’t let you go, that means it is worse so the longer you’re gone, the more I’ll anticipate the worst.”

Micah slid off the edge of the examining table and stood inches away from me. I studied the marbling pattern on his gray t-shirt. It was much nicer than his construction bright green ones I always saw him in. He gave my arm a gentle squeeze.

When I looked up, I went into shock when his lips pressed against mine. My heart was pounding so hard and a thrill wave washed over me from my mouth to my toes. I might have gone weak in the knees. I barely had time to respond when he pulled away. His eyes were a little glazed over when he looked at me.

“There. You won’t have to wonder about all the ‘what ifs’ if my hand causes all my internal body parts to fail in the next few hours.”

My eyes widened in horror.

“I’m just kidding. Travis fell in the water. I barely got my hand wet when I grabbed him and pulled him out. I didn’t really reach in it or anything. It was just what he had on him already. None of us had a clue the water was that toxic. I never would have thought Travis was going to die. I’ll admit I’m totally freaked out. It is just my hand, though. It wasn’t drenched in it.” He kept rubbing my arm. “I’m sure I’ll be fine and won’t lose my hand.”

I tugged on his shirt not wanting to let go. Stepping away from him was going to be much harder. If only he would kiss me again when I might have a clue he was actually going to go for it.

“You look exhausted.”

He was right. I hardly had any sleep the night before and this was the second one running me into the ground. Once he pointed out I looked tired, I finally felt it.

I nodded and leaned against his chest. He didn’t disappoint. He hugged me and kissed the top of my head. Micah whispered in my ear, “I promise to come find you tomorrow.”

He let me go and led me to the door. I was probably grinning like an idiot and I turned and waved. I bumped into the nurse on my way out the door.

“Is he your boyfriend now?” she whispered.

“Maybe so.” In an exhausted daze with only thoughts of that unexpected kiss, I walked back to my apartment. When I went to bed, I sure hoped that Micah would still have his hand when he kept his promise to come find me in the morning.

It took everything I had in me to drag myself out of bed and to the school. I was late and it wasn’t time to teach the older kids but they were all there, beaming with boots lined up on the tables.

“We did it.” Aaron rushed me when I entered the room and swung the rubber boots in front of my face.

“How are you so sure?” I flexed the rubber. They looked like ordinary waterproof boots.

“Don’t worry, I was really careful. I tested them during the lockdown last night.”

All my curiosity was swept away with fury. “You can’t do stuff like that.” I hit the side of his head to hopefully knock some sense back into his brain. “You’re lucky you’re still here. Did you get any of the acid water on you?” I dropped the boots and checked his hands.

He pulled his hands out of mine. “I said I was careful.”

“Don’t you dare lie to me. The construction worker that fell in the water died last night. You can’t play around with this stuff.” The room was suddenly silent.

“What do you mean?” one of the girls in the back of the room asked.

I racked my brain, trying to remember if anyone was related to the young man that died. I had no idea. The construction workers’ families were still a bit of a mystery to me. “I know that someone helping with clean-up fell in the water. It didn’t seem that serious at first. But for some reason he didn’t make it.” I rubbed my face. If only I could have called someone to come in for me. I was far too tired to be there.

Aaron’s excitement shifted to somber. “I was very careful. I never touched the water at all. No one else was there but me. I needed to see if they were safe to use. We worked hard on these, I wanted to make sure they performed as expected, and I believe we came through. It sounds like it’s a good thing too.”

“I’m so sorry.” I pulled out a chair from under the table and eased my weary body down onto it. “You guys did wonderful. Last night was a long one. My friend Jim needed help. When I was done there, I checked on my other friend. His hand was burned by the acid and when we returned to the medical ward after the lockdown, they made him stay. That’s when we found out the other person died. It was far more serious than we realized. I’ve had little sleep. Yes, this is a very important material you have developed especially if the construction workers, and the rest of us, can wear these until they can stop the water crisis.”

“I think there’s another purpose to the acid water. The fact that it poisons us has to be a bonus.” Aaron picked up the boots and studied the texture of the rubber.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s eating away the concrete around the lobby doors, like it is opening it up.”

The silence from earlier was long gone as fear stirred up the room from Aaron’s speculating.

I glared at him. “I don’t think we need to talk about that now.”

“No, you do. Everyone wants to act like this is just our new home and locking ourselves away whenever crap happens up above is the new normal. It’s not normal. We are old enough to know that the weather means business and we may not make it.”

The panic in the room started to build.

“Staying calm and problem solving will get more done than creating fear mongering.”

I was startled by the unexpected voice in the room. When I turned around, I was surprised to see Brandon standing in the doorway.

“I’m actually down here for two reasons. The first is to see what this science class has created to deal with the new crisis. The second, everyone will be meeting in the Community Room shortly for some announcements and Q and A.” He sighed when he met my gaze.

Brandon was finally going to do it. He was about to make the big announcement and shed some light on what was going on outside. I sure wasn’t in the best shape to handle an emotional afternoon though.

“Did I miss the announcement?” I asked.

“No, I haven’t made it yet. I was hoping for some good news first.” He rested his hand on my shoulder. “It looks as if your class has that for me right now.”

I stayed out of the way as he listened to Aaron and the other students explain the materials they combined to make the boots. Brandon tried on a pair and walked around the room.

“Who knew we would need something like this down here?” He rocked back and forth. “I think these will work. There needs to be a pair manufactured for everyone in the building. Do you think you all can handle that?”

The entire class nodded.

“Wonderful. Be thinking of other ways you can make this material useful if we have to come up with more items to protect us from what is still to come.”

“Because that water can kill us, can’t it?” Taylor asked. She was one of the youngest girls and could hold her own with the older kids.

Brandon hesitated at first and looked to me for what he should say. I nodded for him to go on.

“Yes. Yes, it can. We are doing the best we can to adapt to whatever happens next. This time you all have a huge roll in that.” He headed for the door. “I need to make an announcement. Thank you for all your hard work.” He left.

I followed him out the door. “You’re going to tell everyone, aren’t you?”

Brandon nervously rubbed his hands together in front of his chest. “I have to. We have had our first casualty, almost our second. Everyone needs to know. That man’s young wife doesn’t deserve to learn this now that he’s gone. Who will she turn to? Not sharing this news sooner is my biggest regret.”

“She’ll cope the way you and I have. Or she’ll have a crisis like Jim. She’s young so she’ll probably fare better than that.” However, I was worried that Brandon was the one that was about to be stoned to death. Good thing there were no stones. However, there were plenty of chairs.

I waited for him to make his announcement. He really struggled to pull himself together before he turned on the intercom. I stuffed my hands in my back pockets while he announced when he wanted everyone to meet. The robot spider leg in my pocket poked my finger . I held onto it until Brandon finished.

He rubbed the top of his head and walked away as if I wasn’t there.

“Hey,” I grabbed his arm. “You need to see this.” I held up the leg.

Brandon squinted at it before taking it from me. “Where did you get this?”

Shoot, I hadn’t come up with my lie yet. “That thing the security guard discovered in the ducts, the thing giving off the signals, or whatever? This leg came from it.”

He was very interested in the leg as he extended and retracted it again. “This is disconcerting.”

“Why?”

“It’s a spy and I know why it’s here.” His face reddened. “Now I have something else to do first before dealing with this and that’s throw myself under the bus.”

“What?” I hoped he wasn’t going lunatic. He was always so literal that it was uncharacteristic for him to talk in metaphors.

“You know what I mean. Tell everyone the truth.”

The people already on the Community floor were beginning to gather. The other teachers brought in all the kids and they found their parents if they were already in the room. The construction crew showed up, security, the doctors, the vets, even the farmer couple down below.

Murmuring built into lots of discussions and the room sounded like everyone was having quite the social.

Brandon stood on the table.

I hadn’t seen Jim or Micah yet when Brandon started taking a headcount. I had already looked at the clock fifty times waiting for Micah to come find me to reassure me he was going to be all right. I exhaled completely for the first time that morning when he entered the room with a couple of nurses. He looked miserable with his hand wrapped with lots of gauze. He scanned the room. I stood on my tiptoes so he could see me if I was the one he was looking for. It didn’t help much. I was still an average height on my toes and surrounded by men that were inches taller than me.

Micah skirted the crowd and I backed up casually until I was on the outer ring of people on the far side of the room and pretended as if I didn’t know he was there when he finally discovered me.

“Oh, hey. You’re here,” I said with all the just discovered he was there surprise I could muster.

He grunted.

“Is it that bad still?”

Micah didn’t look at me. He stared hard at Brandon. “I almost want to swear you off as my friend.”

“Why?” My heart dropped to my feet.

“Because the method you suggested to get the acid off my hands hurts like hell. It is rather effective, though. I think they’re finally done scrubbing them down. It still feels like the baking soda is eating my skin away.” He sighed. “You did come up with a viable solution. Thank you. I get to keep my hand, even though I’m the one that wants to cut it off now.”

“Oh.” I chewed on my lip. He tugged on the back of my sweatshirt with his good hand and stepped a little bit closer to me. When he didn’t let go, I allowed myself to smile a little as relief washed over me.

“He’s going to do it, huh?” Micah whispered in my ear. His breath on my neck gave me a chill.

“Umm hmm.” Now I was staring hard at Brandon. I couldn’t tell if my heart was pounding because of how close Micah was to me or that Brandon was about to drop a bombshell.

“It seems most everyone is here now so I’ll move this along. I can’t be gone from the control room long.” He’d jumped off the table and  paced along the wall before he went on.

“Who do you think is in the control room?” I asked.

“There are only two others he lets in there when he leaves the room.” Micah answered.

“I don’t think Jim is up to that yet.” I felt bad enough that I was running so late I couldn’t stop and check on him.

Brandon stepped up on the table again and took in deep breath before he spoke. “As you know from yesterday, we have a new situation we are dealing with. Because we were caught unaware, we have our first casualty. Almost two. You heard the announcement regarding the crisis in the control room. Jim had a heart attack.” Several people gasped. “The good news is he will recover. However, one of the members of our construction crew was not so lucky. Travis fell in the water while they were trying to sandbag the farm yesterday. The acid is was far more harmful than we anticipated and even though the medical team did all they could, he didn’t make it.”

Distressed murmuring filled the room. I glanced over at Micah. He rubbed his eyes. I leaned back a little until my shoulder touched his. The hand holding my shirt rested against the small of my back.

“I’ll address this new situation in a few minutes. Because of the death of one of our own, I feel I need to shed some light on what took place on evacuation day.”

The room quieted down with only some whispering from the smallest of the children and the parents shushing them.

Brandon scanned the room. “I feel this news would be best shared with the adults and older teens only. Parents, it is up to you if you want your children to stay or return to the school.”

The children happily left the room to entertain themselves in the massive playroom while everyone else stayed. Once the children were gone, the room was silent.

“I have something to tell you before
anything
else happens. First of all, you need to know I had nothing to do with any bunker assignments. I only designed and supervised the building construction. I had a list of your names before I got here. That was it. Ever since I learned how evacuations were going to take place, I have been sick over it. The only consolation I have is I only met all of you that day no one else. I am sure the next bit I’m about to share will come as a tremendous shock to you all.” He kept his voice low and everyone crowded closer to hear.

“You are the ‘chosen ones’. I don’t know why, I don’t know how it was determined you all would come here. I designed the software that helped organize the bunker populations so I thought I had more control over who was selected to take up residence in my bunker. After researching a little more, I realized that was not the case. They either didn’t use my software or it was tampered with. I just can’t access any of those computers anymore to find out. But it really doesn’t matter at this point. I
do
know there was a plan that those who came here, and if we all survived, we would be the ones that would make sure everything on Earth would not perish. There should be some comfort that we were chosen to be the survivors. This building plan was called the Ark in the beginning. I know that sounds rather pretentious but it is appropriate.”

Whispering stirred in the room.

“Like I said, computers made all the assignments. You all happened to load up on bus four-fiftyseven to come here where you’d be safe. The ones sent to the other bunkers out here were intended to be safe too. The others, they got on buses to caves or abandoned buildings, just random locations and not necessarily safe at all.” The whispering escalated. “Some buses went to the middle of nowhere where there was no protection except for the bus they were on.” Now there was silence. “That basically means some were actually selected to be the first to die and they never knew.”

One of the women in the crowd fainted.

Brandon waited until she was taken care of before he went on. The reality of what he shared was setting it. There were people sniffing and muffled crying in the room.

“Of course I haven’t been able to access any current information to tell you if other members of your family are still alive. However, I do have limited information on where your families were sent. If you really want answers about your friends, I can open up what I have in my database for you. I don’t recommend obsessing over the potential cause of death for those you know. It may drive you mad as it has made me. And as it is, being alive right now is proving to be challenge and may wind up being more of a curse.”

Everyone began to speak at once as they crowded closer. I tugged at Micah’s sleeve and we kept an eye on Brandon, hoping they wouldn’t turn on him. The crowd closed in around him but all they really wanted were answers, saying his name almost at once.

Brandon held up his hand to silence everyone and cocked his head as if he heard something before turning around. “What is that?”

Bossy Pants the security guard heard it too. “I’ve got it!” He ran for a chair and was on it, prying off the vent off while holding a small flashlight in his mouth. He yanked something out of his back pocket that looked like a miniature crossbow and he aimed it in the duct.