High Pressure System: First Season Underground (9 page)

“Hasn’t the water splashed all over everything? I would hate to find out how that feels on my skin.”

I spotted an industrial sized box of aluminum foil. Tearing off a large sheet, I took it into the common room and set it on the floor on top of the standing water that was still slowly eating through the concrete. I set a chair on it and watched it.

“There. That’s our protection. Let’s wrap our hands and feet in it.”

“That is ridiculous.”

“Go read a book then.” I went back into the kitchen. After pulling out several large sheets of foil, I wrapped several layers around my feet and up my leg.

“One way or another we need to walk through that, don’t we?” she asked. Marjie pulled some large sheets for herself and started wrapping.

“Yes.” I stomped on the ground to flatten the bottoms out.

I contemplated the best way to cover my hands when Marjie found some heavy duty rubber gloves.

“They are for working with some serious chemicals. You think they’ll work?” She tossed me a pair.

“Perfect.” I pulled on a pair of gloves. Wearing our tin man fail of a Halloween costume on our feet and ankles, we went to the stairway. The water was no longer a river flowing down the stairs. More like a trickle with standing water in the places where it had etched into the concrete. The stair steps were rounded over the edges where the water had eaten away at the stairs. I could hear the music above and men talking down below.

“Do we stay on the rail?” Marjie shuffled the baking pans under her feet over to the rails.

“I’m testing my foot coverings.” I stepped out tentatively on a spot that was free of standing water and waited before taking my other foot off the tray. They seemed to hold up when I tested resting my foot in a puddle. Nothing came through. “I think we’re good. Just bring the trays with you, come on.”

We made our way carefully down the stairs, trying not splash water up on ourselves. I could see a couple of men from the construction crew sticking their heads through the doorway. The ammonia animal stench burned my nose and my eyes the closer we got to the bottom.

“I hope they never assign me to care for the animals.” Marjie gagged.

“Me too. My dogs and the squirrel are hard enough to keep up with.”

Then I saw him when he was staring right at me in disbelief until they all started laughing at us.

“I thought everyone was still in lock-down,” Micah asked, chuckling now and then when he noticed our feet.

“They are,” Marjie chirped as if our presence there wasn’t out of the ordinary.

“You two just decided to take a walk in the acid rain, huh? Miss the surface that much?” the guy next to Micah asked.

“Not really. We heard you were down here trying to save The Farm so we wanted to help.” She batted her eyelashes and smiled innocently.

Okay, Marjie was the last person you would have expected to say she wanted to help make sandbags. She was too put together. However, she was a good liar. We couldn’t descend the stairs the rest of the way because of the two feet high standing water.

A whirlpool off to the side occasionally made a sucking sound. At least the water was able to drain.

“You aren’t going to make it over here with your aluminum foil leggings. You might as well head back where you came from and wait for the all clear.” Another construction worker that poked his head through the doorway looked aggravated. Probably because we were someplace we shouldn’t be. “Oh! You’re the one that is always in the wrong place at the wrong time. What if that water spills down the stairs again and burns your hair off? You won’t have the looks to win the mastermind over anymore, would you?”

My face burned and if my hands weren’t covered in bulky gloves, and carrying oversized cookie sheets, I would have stuck them in my sweatshirt pockets.

“Hey,” Micah pointed at me. “Look, she knows a thing or two about how to protect herself with this stuff. The skin on my hands is burning and peeling off where I accidentally touched the water. Travis needs to see a doc as soon as we can get out of here safely. He didn’t know better and he’s out of work for who knows how long now.”

“You want our gloves?” Marjie started to pull them off.

“I think they have something like that down here and we should have asked for them before we started. The emergency is almost over. Thanks to your sharp thinking, at least we know what to use if it happens again.”

The water was finally at a safe level. However, I didn’t want to be glared at anymore. Before I could turn around and head back up, Micah was standing on top of the sandbags and jumped to the stairs above the water puddle that filled the landing. “I’m going to see what damage there is up above and escort these ladies to safety while I’m at it.”

Marjie not so discreetly nudged my ribs and smiled.

Once we climbed a couple of flights, I felt ridiculous with my foiled legs crinkling whenever I took a step.

“What’s up? I saw the look you gave Rachel.” Micah held the door open to the floor below the common room and above The Farm.

“Wait, why are we going here?” Marjie asked.

I trailed behind a little. Micah stopped and turned.

“Are you ready for another Brandon confrontation?” Micah asked me.

I shook my head.

“Too bad.” He hooked his arm in mine and escorted me through the construction debris. “This is where the new control room is going to be. It’s almost done. Good thing. He’s changed his mind about what floor he wanted this room to be on more than once. Otherwise it would have been finished much sooner.” He turned to Marjie. “You two are up to mischief together now? Is that what’s going on? She’s a bad influence you know.” He turned his head slightly to meet my eyes and gave me a half-smile.

I rolled my eyes. I knew he didn’t mean it and I also saw something in the look he gave me that made my heart skip a beat. He stopped abruptly and examined his fingers.

“I should probably wash my hands. This hurts far more than it should.” He squeezed his palm with his muddy hand. The one that was bothering him was red and a layer of skin of skin was peeling off his fingers already. “Can you help me in the bathroom, Rachel?” he asked as he headed for one of the only finished doorways in the room.

“Umm, sure.” I followed him and gave Marjie a wide-eyed look. She gave me a thumbs up and I wanted to shrink and hide in my sweatshirt. All these matchmaking efforts.

He held the door open with his body. I stepped into what was obviously a men’s public style restroom and hoped I wasn’t flushing all over my face. He looked at me while we stood at the sink.

“Can you turn on some warm water for me?” he asked.

“Oh, of course.” Man, I was dense. I turned on the water and tested the temp. He scooted closer until his hip was touching mine. Micah glanced at me briefly as he let the water run over his hands then he closed his eyes and winced from the pain.

“What were you two up to? I don’t think it was just to try out those fantastic aluminum knee high boots you have on.”

“Jim said there was sandbagging going on to save The Farm.” I debated on carrying on the lie or telling him the truth. I sighed. “We figured you were down there. We
were
looking for you.”

“Is she your friend now?”

“I guess.”

“You know she’s been flirting with me plenty whenever she sees me.”

“She also knows you prefer to keep an eye on me,” I said and there was no stopping the burn in my face. He flushed too.

“That obvious, huh? I’m not sure you noticed though.”

“I might have.” All of a sudden I didn’t know what to do with my hands, or my arms, maybe even my legs.

“Hmm.” He finished washing his hands and examined his peeling fingers. “I’m not sure I will be working for a few days.”

“Maybe I might see you?”

“Why the sudden interest? I know I’m not easy to find sometimes. But you are impossible to catch up with.”

“Not that impossible. I’ve spent a lot of time in the room you made for the school.”

He scowled at me.

“I haven’t had a chance to say thank you properly.”

He raised his eyebrows for me to go on.

“And you know things. You told me yourself so that’s not a secret. You just didn’t bother to tell me what they were. From what I’ve learned so far, I’m starting to understand why you get so upset.”

“I’m not spilling my guts now. We have acid water all over the stairs, Brandon needs to know, and everyone else needs to be released from lock-down. Not like you pay attention to that sort of thing anymore.” Micah turned his back to me and walked out the door.

“Wait, are you mad?”

“No.” He walked past Marjie.

There was a room at the end of the hall. Micah knocked and waited, rocking on his heels.

Marjie and I waited behind him. I studied the crinkles of the foil on my feet when the door opened.

“How’s the bottom floor?” Brandon asked.

I stepped sideways so I was directly behind Micah, wanting to keep out of Brandon’s view as long as I could.

“It’s safe and the water is draining. I’m concerned it drained into the aquifer. We need to come up with an alternate system if it happens again.” Micah fanned his hand.

“What’s wrong? Who is that behind your back?” Brandon turned his head to the side until he could see me.

I gave him an awkward wave and forced a weak smile on my face.

“Guess who.” Micah wasn’t as warm as he was moments ago and I wanted to crawl away.

“Miss Cooper too? You have a tendency to escape during lock-downs. I would have thought Rachel would have influenced you to stay put rather than wander around due to her multiple near death experiences.” Brandon glared at us both.

I looked at Marjie in shock.

“Well, I guess Micah was wrong about who the bad influence was.” She let loose a little nervous laugh.

“It’s not a total loss though. They came up with a rather clever way to deal with the acid water. I think we should consider having the 3D printer work on some protective gear so we can deal with it.”

“That’s quite the … ah … boots you have there.” Brandon couldn’t take his eyes off them for a very long minute. Maybe it was two.

Micah went on to give Brandon the rundown on the damage on the stairs as far as we had gone. Marjie and I just waited in silence, unsure of whether to leave or stay put for further interrogation.

Brandon looked at me when they were done talking. “Jim hasn’t been himself lately. In fact, I have been worried that all my concerns were wearing on him and put him in some sort of emotional crisis.”

I wasn’t sure why I filled with fury. Micah’s sudden change and the dismissive way he just treated me was irritating and frustration over Brandon keeping secrets as to what happened to the rest of the world overwhelmed me so much that I couldn’t hold back my anger. “He knows his family probably died and you’ve known all along. It bothers him you didn’t tell him and he’s had to wonder what awful death they might have suffered. In fact, I’m mad that you haven’t told us all what you know yet. Why do you think you have to keep it to yourself? Your burden would not be so heavy if everyone knew. Jim is your friend. He deserved to hear what you knew from you. Not hunt it down in the archives on your computer.”

“That has been confidential.” Brandon’s face turned pasty white.

“He really needs to know if his family is dead,” I said emphatically.

“I don’t know that.” He shook his head.

“No? But you do know the likelihood they survived is low. You shared what you knew about my family with me probably because the news wasn’t so grim.”

Micah and Marjie shifted to silent observers during my confrontation with Brandon.

“You need to let go of some information. You have to. You need to let Marjie know if her boyfriend was sent to a bunker. If you know where everyone’s parents, grandparents, children were sent. You gotta tell us.” My eyes welled up with tears. I blinked them back.

“I know. I’ve been trying to find the right time. I’m really struggling with all that I know and I can’t tell everyone those things just yet. I will get there. Right now, the storms are out to kill us with something new and that is my priority. To make things worse, I haven’t been able to get a hold of Jim for some reason.” Brandon pressed the call button on the thumb recognition pad. There was no answer.

“You don’t want to mess with that water.” Micah showed Brandon his hand.

“I don’t know how we’re going to keep up with this.” Brandon rubbed his head and messed up his hair even more than it already was. He was about to turn into Einstein. I wondered if I should start calling him Einstein the younger.

“I have some ideas. First, someone needs to go check on Jim. I’ve got that.” Micah didn’t waste any time and he motioned for me to come.

“I can’t make any announcements down here yet.” Brandon pointed to his new control room with loose wires dangling under the long counter.

“We can check the status of the water on the stairs to see if it’s safe to release everyone from Lock-down and will take care of that too.”

Marjie didn’t follow. She was in tears and was already prodding Brandon for information about her boyfriend.

Micah handed me a construction hardhat before we stepped into the stairway. “Make sure no skin is exposed. I’m sure something might drip on us.”

We walked up several flights of stairs before Micah broke the silence between us. “That was the big secret you wanted to know, wasn’t it?”

“That was one. I don’t know how much you are aware of, of course.”

“Is that all you want from me?” He paused for a moment.

“What do you mean?”

“Never mind.” He started up the stairs again.

I had an idea why he was miffed. I had no tact sometimes.

“Well, I have wanted to get to know you. Like what was your dog’s name, the one you said you left behind? What was your life like before you got here? Did you have a girl you liked and left behind?”

He didn’t say much. The only sound was our footfalls on the stairs. Mine sounded metallic and it made me cringe.

“Okay then,” I said, giving up. It was getting harder to breathe. There were so many stairs

“I know Brandon likes you. I’ve heard stuff. Like when he held your hand. Yeah, I know about that too.”

“You were waiting for me, weren’t you?” I had a lump in my throat. Where was a hiding place when I actually needed one?

“The whole indoor outdoor simulator was my thing. Something I really wanted to do for you. I was looking forward to seeing your reaction. He showed up and it messed up my plan. I worked so hard on the room to make it just the way you wanted. I stayed up all night more than once and then he found out I was doing it for you. He decided to help. I didn’t ask. He pitched in on the technical stuff I couldn’t do, though. He knows I like you. He knew that day we showed up soaking wet after that storm. He might not divulge much information most of the time. However, I did hear about his success at making a move for your hand.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t expect it either. I didn’t know what to do. I knew you made the room. Then I never saw you.” I rubbed my face with my sleeve. At least he wasn’t looking at me.

“You like to go into hiding.” He stopped and waited for me to catch up.

“I was hiding in the planetarium, sort of. I was hoping you would come. I also hoped you wouldn’t because I was scared to choose. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I don’t know how to handle this sort of thing. It has never happened to me before.”

We were finally on the main control room floor, just a few floors below the lobby to the outside. I still felt panic whenever we got that close.

Before he opened the door, he turned to face me. “Do you know who you would choose?”

I was speechless and I couldn’t answer. It could have been so easy. “I will tell you later. We need to check on Jim.” I moved past him and pulled the door open.

Micah wasn’t happy with my answer. More like a non-answer. All I said in my head afterwards was
you, it’s you, you. How hard is it to just say ‘you’
? Surely he could read it on my face.

I stared at him without meaning to as I followed him down the hall. Under his hardhat his brown curls were going every which way on his neck and above his ears because his hair was getting a little long and his broad shoulders that screamed at me to pay attention to them due to the florescent green work shirt he wore. He was so attractive, so caring, and the best part about him was he really liked my dogs.